


Supernova

by houseofthestars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Other, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Silver Snow spoilers, Timey Wimey Bullshit, Verdant Wind Spoilers, a cobbled together theory on crests, archbishop is a gender neutral title, friends to slightly more than friends, wavy hands at post-game canon, what if everything byleth does in game is canon, who left this weirdo in charge of the powers of a goddess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-05 16:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21211943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars
Summary: “Did you feel it?” Teach asks. “It feels like…” they pause and take a sip of their tea. “I don’t know. Everything’s so strange these days. I feel like I’m going to burst.”“When did this start?”“A few moons ago. I think. It’s hard to tell. I lose when I am, too.” They aren’t making a lot of sense, but words spill out of their mouth, level but rapid. "First it was just little things but now it's big things. I think things inside of me aren’t working as well as they used to.”--It's all very well being fused with the power of a goddess, but it can't be good for your long term health. A post-Verdant Wind imagining of Byleth's future as the ruler of Fódlan not going quite how they might have planned, and how they bring their friends back to help them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge huge thank you to everyone who encouraged me while I was writing this and encouraged me to post it here as well - Vector, Harry, Mae and especially [smarny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarny/pseuds/smarny) whose work [The Making of a Miracle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722667) is a must read if you love Verdant Wind recruitment shenanigans and an absolutely spot-on bisexual disaster Claude. And to my husband who hadn't even played the game when I started this but let me throw ideas at him. I'm EXTREMELY new to ao3 so I apologise if I've made any mistakes with tagging etc.

When he was at the monastery, Claude had only really missed home during the Blue Sea Moon when it was warm enough for the Almyran frangipani to bloom in the greenhouse. The soft warm perfume of it would reach him during chores or a brief visit, and immediately bring to mind the arrangements of spiral-shaped petals floating in large terracotta bowls that would sit in the courtyards and terraces of the capital. The warmest Garreg Mach ever reached was the same as an Almyran winter, but with the smell of the flowers and the heat of the sun reflecting in the greenhouse, it was almost like being back there. Almost.

Since he returned to Almyra he hasn’t missed Fódlan at all. He'd left because Nader had asked him to quit slacking off and come home, kiddo, and because it had been long enough and his dreams began with some work outside the edges of this strange, closed off country. But something about looking through the window and seeing the spires of Garreg Mach break through the distant hills sends an odd little feeling of apprehension down his spine, and he involuntarily tries to shake it away.

“Are you actually cold right now?” snorts Hilda from the opposite seat. She’s threading beads from a pile in her lap onto a little silver chain, shifting her knees to counterbalance the rocking of the carriage when they hit a bump so that they don’t all spill onto the floor. “You’re totally getting soft spending all your time in the desert. We should have stayed longer at the Locket, then you would have been properly cold.”

He laughs. “You’re right, I’m a delicate summer flower these days. You really hate that place, don’t you?” They’d been mostly dozing their way across Leicester until now. They’d had their proper reunion back at the fort the night before, along with Lord Holst, drinking a bottle of Hrym cassis mixed with white wine which Hilda insisted all the nobles were doing these days. It was colourful, sugary and good at knocking you out, which was a perfect match for Hilda. They hadn’t gone to sleep until the song thrushes had started to sing again, but he didn’t mind.

Hilda shrugs. “It’s better now there’s more places to shop and eat. I can’t get these glass beads with the rose gold flakes inside from anywhere else and they’re so cute. And I guess I didn’t mind seeing my brother _ too _ much.”

“Well, even so, I appreciate you coming to meet me.”

“You’re so welcome!” she replies in her sweet singsong, and then nods out of the window towards the approaching spires of the monastery. “Feels weird coming back, huh? I haven’t even been back since they crowned the Archbishop. It must be even longer for you.”

"Yeah, well, you know how it is, I've got all this king stuff to do. Turns out it's pretty hard work? I thought it was just going to be a lot of waving." He shrugs. "And it seems like Teach has been pretty busy too. Here's me thinking it was going to be me and them, rebuilding the world, but all I get is their secretary." 

“Until that weird letter, huh?”

He nods. Until a month ago, when another routine missive from Seteth talking about the timetable for drafting of another trade agreement had come enclosed with a note in the professor's own spidery handwriting. It was the first Claude had seen of it in years, and the longest message he'd ever seen it write:

_ Hello Claude. Sorry I haven't written before now. I hope you're well. You should come visit some time. Byleth. _

The other reason Claude had left Fódlan is because he’d crossed the width and breadth of this place and seen every messed up thing this country had to offer, he reckoned. Fortresses destroyed by javelins of light. Giant metal beasts that could cut through swathes of soldiers with one stroke of their arm. Young students turned into savage monsters against their will. Old heroes and villains returned from the dead, and not being sure which was which. 

_ You should come visit some time. _

It was a very casual suggestion and so Claude had immediately been suspicious. The paper wasn't any kind of official stationery - in fact it looked torn out of the endpapers of a book - and what's more, Teach didn't really do casual suggestions.

If they said _ you should come visit _then they probably meant that Claude should come visit. And when he contacted Hilda to ask for a place to stay on the passage across the Throat, it turns out she had gotten one too. And while it would be nice to think that Teach just wanted to catch up on old times, Claude’s gut was telling him otherwise.

\--

Claude focuses his attention outside - they’re almost at the gates now, which is when he starts to notice things. Where large banners of the Crest of Seiros used to hang, fly thick quilted tapestries. When he passes one it reads Tailtean, another Gronder, another Myrrdin. The one for Teutates has a shoal of silver fish weaving around its name.

By now Hilda is shoulder to shoulder with him, pressed up against the glass. She squeals, squeezing his knee and pointing: whole previously-manicured lawns have been dug up and replaced with wildflowers from the west, the east, the north, places that used to be separate but now are just called Fódlan. Butterflies and bees dart in between the stems, fluttering like confetti.

There are even more cats than before, he notes, basking in the sun on the warm stone and barely batting an eyelid as their carriage rumbles by. 

And then Claude finally spots it; the glass dome of the Cathedral, built anew. Before it had been clear glass, but now he can see shards of all colours reflecting in the sun like a broken kaleidoscope.

It’s beautiful and strange and a little chaotic and it has Teach written all over it.

They pull to a halt outside the gate, stopping short of another sleeping cat. It’s hardly a grand entrance, but he gets enough of those in Almyra these days and something is telling him that it’s best not to make too much of a fuss. He hears the wyverns up in the roost bellow a greeting, though, which makes him smile. Those guys have long memories and a keen sense of smell. He takes a breath, then steps out of the carriage onto the gravel before holding a hand out to help Hilda down. 

“Shall we?” Hilda says, and takes his arm fully, giving it a little squeeze, and they make their way into the reception hall. 

It’s far busier than Claude had ever seen it during his time at Garreg Mach, which befits the home of the new ruler of Fódlan. Officer’s Academy students, pilgrims and clergy flit through the crowded space, almost as colourful as the wildflowers outside. It takes a moment before someone on the staff intercepts them as they head to the second floor, bowing deeply but asking a little too urgently where exactly they needed to go.

“Oh, good afternoon!” Hilda cuts in, voice sweet as honey. “Soooo sorry to just barge in like this. My name is Lady Hilda Valentine Goneril. We were hoping to speak to the Archbishop; you see I’ve got all this _ money _ I just wanna _ give _ to the church…”

The monk frowns. “Do you have an appointment, Lady Hilda? Lord Seteth usually deals with donations, and he’s obviously very busy what with the Rite of Rebirth at the end of the month.”

Hilda sighs. “Oh, you know, I would’ve done that, but we were kind of in a rush? We just want to drop by to do our noble duty and donate on the way to our honeymoon, and it would mean _ so _ much to me if my new husband and I were to receive a blessing from the goddess on our union while we were here. If only there was a way for that to happen…” she sighs again. Claude isn’t one to miss a cue, and clasps her hand in his own.

“There there, my beloved. It has been a long journey especially with all this heavy gold in the back of our carriage. But we can just turn around and take it back, don’t be too sad. Please, darling, don’t cry.”

The monk clears his throat and hurriedly says “well, uh, the Archbishop is just about to lead a service for Saint Cethleann Day in the Cathedral, you’d be very welcome to join us in worship, and I can speak to Lord Seteth in the meantime.”

Hilda’s face breaks from sadness into joy like the rising of the sun and no wonder she can twist people round her little finger like this. “Oh that would be amazing! Thank you so much, that’s so thoughtful of you. You’ve done such a great job helping us find where we need to go. Come on, husband, don’t want to miss the hymns, I love singing.”

The new dome of the cathedral is even more beautiful from underneath. It could be a starry sky, or the reflections inside a jewel, vast and abstract and stunning. He'd been expecting to find the Crest of Seiros within it, or maybe even the Crest of Flames, but there's nothing. Just colour and light.

It’s busy in here, too, full of students and clergy and some of the local nobility showing their face on a religious day. Claude never really spent much time in the cathedral. Going in felt like intruding somehow, especially compared to the time Marianne and Ignatz had spent here, interacting with the goddess in their own intensely personal ways. He still feels like an outsider being here now, surrounded by all these people.

A movement catches his eye, a flash of green, and he turns to look with a jump, but it's Seteth and Flayn, settling themselves on the front row with bishops and cardinals. They haven't changed a bit, but Claude wasn't expecting them to. Claude sees the monk from before scuttle up to their seats and whisper apologetically in Seteth’s ear, and both Seteth and Flayn turn around to look at Claude and Hilda with impressive synchronicity. Flayn looks delighted and waves one excited hand close to her chest. Seteth looks suspicious, but that could just be his face. Claude waves back. 

A reverent silence slowly settles over the congregation as the organ stops playing, and then everyone scrambles to their feet as the Archbishop steps up to the pulpit.

\--

They’d triumphed, of course, despite everything. Him and Teach side by side in the mud, Failnaught in his own hands and the Sword of the Creator in theirs, and when he’d fired his last arrow into the sky, the only thing that mattered was that he  _ trusted _ , he  _ knew _ that Teach would push Nemesis back enough for that bolt to land exactly where it needed to. 

As the Alliance troops began to roar victory, Teach had reached out a hand to him to pull him up, the gold of the dawn turning their hair almost white, and smiled. It was with their whole face and their whole body in a way that Claude had never seen them smile before.

And then Byleth had swayed, their legs buckling and their eyelids fluttering, and Claude had only just enough time to stop their head hitting the muddy ground before Catherine and Flayn had reached the two of them. Their dirty faces were streaked with tears, Rhea’s loss still so fresh, and he’d let the pair of them pull Teach away to safety. Lysithea and Leonie had reached for him instead, half laughing and half crying between the pair of them, and they’d swept him over to the rest of the Deer.

And that, pretty much, had been the last he’d seen or heard of Teach. It was to be expected, really. He had his own obligations to Almyra and Teach had theirs to Fódlan and the Church. Still, official communications had fluttered between his place and theirs once Claude had returned home and started to put his plans into action. Each time he received a letter with the Crest of Seiros stamped on the outside of it he’d thought of Teach, wondered how someone like that was doing in a world like this.

Someone just a little to the left of the reality everyone else around them lived in. A prodigious fighter, a skilled tactician, who couldn’t name a single town in Fódlan but would never forget a birthday or your favourite meal. Who could wield the power of a goddess but preferred to spend their time in the greenhouse rather than the cathedral. Whose face barely changed with their emotions but who would gesture widely with their arms and body as if to compensate.

Over time some of their idiosyncrasies had been explained, some more dramatically than others, but the one that stuck in Claude’s mind had been a night on the way to Enbarr. They hadn’t been able to find lodgings for the commanders this far into the Empire so they were camping with the rest of the infantry, and Claude had watched Teach prepare a pot of tea, walking back and forth from fire to supply chest with a relaxation he’d never seen before. 

“You know Teach, for the fact we’re sitting ducks out here in the open, you seem way more laid back than normal,” he’d said. “I think this is the most leisurely pace I’ve ever seen you do anything.”

Teach had paused to think about it. “We’re outside,” they’d said. “I like it. I can hear everything better out here.”

Claude had tried to follow their train of thought. “You can’t hear things as well inside? Oh,” he added as he realised. “You mean the monastery. I guess it is pretty noisy there sometimes.” 

Teach had nodded and looked up at the stars, sparks rising from the fire like they were trying to join the ones above. “I like this better.”

He’d never thought of it like that. Someone who grew up as a mercenary, travelling the width and breadth of Fódlan and sleeping in encampments under the stars, suddenly pulled into a huge echoing stone castle full of noisy teenagers? It must have been unnerving. 

And look at them now, back in the big echoing monastery that used to make them so anxious.

They look… different. They’re not in the finery Rhea used to wear - the navy jacket and cape could almost be a hand-me-down of Seteth’s, if not for the gold embroidery on the shoulders that curls into the Crest of Flames. The circlet on their brow is new, too, tiny circular emeralds scattered along its length. Their hair is longer and half pulled back, like he remembers Linhardt doing during the war, but in a braid with red and white ribbons threaded through. It suits them, even if it is a little odd that to see them not armed to the teeth.

That’s not the only thing, though. It’s not like Claude hasn’t seen Teach change their look before. He’s seen them cut a hole in the sky with a sword, he’s seen them defeat long-dead kings. But Claude finds that right now, he can’t stop looking at them. They pull his attention as they look out over the congregation, the coloured light from the cathedral dancing over their hair and face. It’s only when they look downwards to look at their hymn book that Claude can take a moment to notice that everyone else in the cathedral is staring at them in exactly the same way. 

It’s like they… glow. But not like Hilda’s sunrise smile, or even like the light through the cathedral glass. It’s more like the glow of Failnaught when he draws an arrow. It’s as unsettling as it is compelling.

Of course there were some things he was sure he would never understand about Teach, but he couldn't resist a puzzle. And every time he worked something out about them, he felt like he’d been gifted something rare and precious. And whatever it was that Teach needed now, he was determined to help.

\--

By the time the service ends Claude feels exhausted, wrung out, and he’d almost forgotten about his and Hilda’s little scheme. Almost, until the congregation starts to disperse and two green heads of hair are moving determinedly towards them.

Flayn reaches them first and there’s genuine joy on her face. “Claude, and Hilda! It is so very wonderful to see the two of you so unexpectedly. And I am told the two of you are wed now? How did I not hear of this sooner!”

“Yes, I was thinking the same thing,” says Seteth, a little more meaningfully, and Hilda gives a little laugh, and wow, can she blush on cue? This woman is amazing.

“Oh, you guys. I’m so sorry to spoil it but we’re not really married! And we don’t have loads of gold in our carriage either. We just really wanted to see you, and the Archbishop, and that monk guy was being a real jerk. But now we’re here and talking to you, so no harm done right?"

“Oh, so you are not married?” Flayn exclaims. “Well, honestly I am glad, for I had been a little disappointed that I had not been invited to the ceremony. I do so love a wedding.”

“Oh Flayn, you know I’d invite you if I ever did get married! You would be the cutest bridesmaid for sure,” and there’s the  _ we lied to your staff  _ nicely diverted away into hypothetical wedding talk. Hilda is a star. As she and Flayn chat Claude cranes his neck to try to look at the front of the cathedral where Teach had been just minutes ago, but it’s empty.

“If you are here on official business, your Majesty, we might have made more arrangements to accommodate you had we been warned in advance,” Seteth says, leaning to meet where Claude is looking.

Claude shrugs. “Nah, nothing official. But we got a message from Teach to come visit, so here we are. Can we go talk to them?”

Seteth looks confused. “When did you receive a message from the Archbishop?”

Claude and Hilda both hand over their torn, spidery notes to Seteth, and both he and Flayn read them together with furrowed brows.

“How strange of the Archbishop to have written like this,” says Seteth. “But then they have been acting rather… strangely, in the moments that I have seen them recently.”

“Strangely? How so?”

Seteth looks around uncomfortably. Most of the congregation has left the cathedral now, but there are still some people praying. “Let us walk towards my office,” he suggests.

When they’re walking across the bridge back into the main part of the monastery, he continues to explain. “I have noticed for the last moon or two that the Archbishop has been… unsettled. Leaving their office at odd times of the night and day. Sleeping at inopportune moments. Sometimes leaving food untouched, and sometimes asking for seconds, thirds, fourths. I had assumed they were overtired; I have been letting them rest in the hopes that they will be recovered in time for the Rite of Rebirth.”

“And the fishing,” Flayn adds. “They spend hours fishing and then throw everything back. The pond here has always been wonderfully plentiful, but even Mother never caught so many fish as the Archbishop does these days.”

“I’m not going to lie, a lot of that just kinda sounds like stuff the Prof- the Archbishop does,” says Hilda.

“Well, yes, I suppose. But you will just have to trust us that it seems out of the ordinary, particularly in light of recent occurrences.”

“What do you mean?”

He gestures to the grounds. “Well, for one, all these new flowers everywhere - not just the wildflowers, you should see the greenhouse, the gardeners can barely keep everything under control.”

“That doesn’t sound so strange,” Claude points out.

“It’s more the quantity,” Seteth interjects. “Of course, the Archbishop can make changes to Garreg Mach as they see fit, the new banners are wonderful, but the flowers all just seemed to spring up overnight. And elsewhere.. there have been reports from the knights about odd things in the local towns this spring.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Families expecting twins and triplets. Farmer’s seeds being sown one week and being fit to harvest the next. In one town a baker claimed his bag of flour just kept refilling overnight. Another worker fell beneath a wagon and escaped without a scratch, in circumstances that should have claimed his life. They’re all things that I would dismiss out of hand, if they were not all happening so simultaneously.”

Huh. All strange, but rather circumstantial, Claude thinks, but he remembers the way he had felt watching Teach at the pulpit. The way everyone couldn’t take their eyes off them. They’re almost at Seteth’s office now, but all of them hesitate at the foot of the stairs to the Archbishop’s quarters.

“Well I dare say,” Flayn says, “If they have written to you personally as it seems they have, there must be some reason, though I am rather hoping it is but a jest. I imagine they are back in their quarters by now - perhaps if my brother and I accompany you we might all learn of this together.”

Seteth looks remarkably apprehensive as he knocks on the door of the Archbishop’s quarters a short walk later. “Archbishop? Are you there?”

“I’m a bit busy,” comes a muffled voice through the door. 

“Archbishop, we wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t urgent,” says Flayn.

“Can you come back later?” Teach’s voice is still as calm as it had been during the service, but they’re talking a little faster than Claude is used to. 

“Professor?” calls Hilda against the wood. “It’s your old pal Hilda! And Claude’s here too! We got your letters.”

A pause. “You did?”

“Yeah! We’re worried about you, Teach,” calls Claude.

Another moment of silence, and then a latch unclicks. “Ok. You can all come in. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising- Oh,  _ whoa _ ,” and as the four of them enter there’s the smell of pollen and there are flowers,  _ everywhere _ , busting through the floor and in the cracks of the walls and lining shelves, and in the middle of the room Teach is stood stock still, grass and flowers up to their knees. 

“I don’t know how to stop it,” they say.

“What in the world is going on in here?” Seteth exclaims.

“Hello everyone,” says Teach. “Happy birthday, Flayn. I could use some help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a fair chunk of this already written but I'll spread out the posting of the chapters so that hopefully I can write the ending alongside it all. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> If you want a visual for Byleth's Sweet Archbishop Duds please enjoy [this,](https://66.media.tumblr.com/49ea780e9014983f78a90754f757637e/de61528c409c9d96-18/s540x810/199f3fbb2b6ee6ed7525db8bd8221afc11956d00.jpg) which I drew before I started writing this because I hate the Enlightened One outfit so much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth describes the symptoms, and the band gets back together. Somehow.

They push grass and petals off the nearby glass table and Claude fixes the tea while Flayn tries to help Teach across the floor. When their foot touches the stone, there’s the sound of creaking and rustling until new flowers spring up between their toes and around their heels. Claude’s seen plenty of magic but nothing much like this, nothing this… wild.

Teach wobbles, and Flayn holds out a hand to catch them; when Teach takes it, Flayn gasps aloud.

“Flayn?” Seteth asks, panicked, but Flayn shakes her head, releasing Teach’s hand quickly.

“Do not fret, brother, I am not the one you should be worried about.”

Teach finally reaches the table and looks dubiously at the chair. “I’ll stand,” they decide, nodding to themself. Claude carefully hands them a cup of tea, which thankfully does not explode into apple blossom. They wrap both hands around the circumference.

“I’m glad you came,” Teach says to Hilda and Claude, and then to Seteth and Flayn, “I’m sorry about the mess.”

“Please, Professor. Tell us what is going on,” asks Flayn. “When I took your hand just now…”

“Did you feel it?” Teach asks. “It feels like…” they pause and take a sip of their tea. “I don’t know. Everything’s so strange these days. I feel like I’m going to burst.”

“When did this start?”

“A few moons ago. I think. It’s hard to tell. I lose when I am, too.” They aren’t making a lot of sense, but words spill out of their mouth, level but rapid. "First it was just little things but now it's big things. I think things inside of me aren’t working as well as they used to.”

From what they can gather, eking answers out of Teach little by little, it seems it started in the spring, with odd dreams. Dreams of the war. 

“Things that didn’t happen, but they seem so real. Places I’ve never been. People who… Dimitri. Dimitri was telling me he was sorry. Edelgard, she was, she was in Garreg Mach, but it was hers. And Claude, you…” Teach doesn’t finish their sentence, and dreams are just dreams, but Claude isn’t sure he wants to hear it anyway.

“It is understandable to dream of the war,” Flayn says gently. There’s a shifting silence of agreement. Even hearing Dimitri and Edelgard’s names has sent the temperature in the room a few degrees colder.

“I don’t dream,” says Teach firmly. “Not like that. Not for years.”

From dreams it spilled into the waking world, little by little. Small electric shocks when they brushed past someone in the hall, like a thunder spell that hadn’t discharged properly. Old scars fading into clear, unmarked skin. The old birthday flowers in their room, dried out, turning green and fresh again. Fish in the kitchen jumping to life in their hands. And then one day they’d been at their desk working on answering letters from nobles and realised that hadn’t taken a breath since they sat down. Not a single rise or fall of their lungs.

The simultaneous knowledge that they were both fine and that they absolutely should not be fine had caused them to pass out.

“Only for a little bit,” they say to four horrified faces. “And I’m breathing now. I think.” They put a palm in front of their mouth and nose, then nod, satisfied.

“Archbishop, why in the world did you not tell us something was wrong?” Seteth asks, aghast.

Teach‘s face doesn’t change, but there’s an embarrassed pause before they reply. “You were all so busy. Doing all the things I should have been doing. I didn’t want to cause a fuss. But then the letters, and… I don’t know. It keeps happening and I’m not sure what to do. I’m scared.”

Claude has seen a lot of messed up stuff in Fódlan but the deadpan way the Archbishop says those last two words unsettle him like nothing else has in a long time. Teach might be odd and disconnected and sometimes a little rude, but they were never scared.

Flayn looks again at her hand. “They feel like fire,” she says, softly. “When I touched them, they- they feel like they are burning.”

“Is Professor Manuela still here?” Claude asks.

“She went back to Enbarr a few months ago. We haven’t hired a permanent replacement yet.”

Damn. “We could do with a physician here. No one new. Someone that we can trust with Teach.”

"Marianne isn't too far from here," Hilda says. “She would be here quicker than Professor Manuela.”

“Doesn’t she take care of horses?”

“It’s basically the same thing.”

“It absolutely is not.”

“Marianne could totally work out what the people equivalent of horse illness is,” says Hilda defensively. “She’s super smart. And we know we can trust her.”

Everyone looks dubiously at her, but Claude can’t argue that at least they can be a hundred percent sure that Marianne won’t sell Teach’s blood or hair to some straggler left from those who slither in the dark, behind their backs. And what’s more, having Marianne here would make Hilda happy.

"Okay, sure. Let’s get in touch with Marianne. What about Lysithea? Do you know where she is these days?”

“Back in Ordelia, I’m pretty sure.”

“We should send a message to her as well. And Professor Hanneman. And Linhardt von Hevring while we’re at it.”

“It’s ok,” says Teach. “They all have messages. They should come and visit.”

“Teach, I really don’t think people read that sentence the same way you do.”

“You came, didn’t you?” they reply, and then the teacup shatters in their hands.

—

He and Hilda are offered overnight lodgings on the third floor that have very obviously not been opened up or aired in a very long time but are close enough to the Archbishop’s room that they can hear if they call. The rooms are stuffy and dusty, but next time Claude walks past Hilda has convinced some knights to go in with dusters and cloths and they’re serviceable.

And just like that, he’s living at Garreg Mach all over again. He picks up the torn note from Teach on his desk. Was this really all it had taken to bring him back here, despite everything? There was a saying in Almyran that ran to the equivalent of: if it wasn’t your wyvern, it wasn’t your mess. But then, he'd always had a knack for walking straight into wyvern mess.

He thinks of Teach, and those two words.  _ l'm scared.  _

He writes a message to the court in Almyra that he will be away for a few more days than he had previously thought. Things are stable enough right now that his absence won’t cause immediate problems, but the thought of leaving all his hard work in the hands of his advisers makes his stomach knot up, so he asks that they send daily reports. Before he sends it, he crosses that out and amends it to weekly. 

He goes to the library and pulls out books he can find about legends of the Goddess, of which, unsurprisingly, there are more than he can carry. He picks out the oldest ones and promises the new librarian he’ll bring them right back. Afterwards he goes to the greenhouse, which as Seteth mentioned is more like a jungle right now. Someone has at least cut a path through to the back, and he manages to pick a handful of frangipani blooms. 

He put the books on the desk in his room, and beside them rests the blooms in a soup bowl of water. They won’t last too long outside of the greenhouse, a day or two at most, but for now they fill the air with their sweet scent. 

Teach promises to stay out of trouble and Seteth promises to send messengers straight away to Hanneman, Lysithea, Marianne and Linhardt. Which makes it all the more surprising when Leonie and Raphael turn up that afternoon, holding notes torn from book pages. Raphael is a fully fledged knight these days and it seems to be treating him well, all tanned face, calluses and muscle bulk.

“Hey Claude! I hear you’re a king now?”

“Sure am.”

“Cool! So what’s up with the Professor?” 

“They’re… unwell. I have a hunch why, but I’ve asked for a professional opinion so we should probably wait for that before I say any more.”

“Can you give us the gist?” says Leonie. She’s the outdoors sort of healthy too. Claude could swear she’s still wearing the same outfit she wore on the battlefield when they fought Nemesis, just with more patches. 

“I think it might be to do with their Crest,” he says, and both Leonie and Raphael barely stifle a groan.

“What is it with you nobles? Can’t you have normal problems like everyone else?” 

“Hey, I’m not a noble anymore, not really. And neither is Teach.”

“You’re still a von Riegan, you know. And you and Teach are both like, monarchs now. I don’t think you can get much more noble that that,” points out Raphael. He grins. “But if the Professor needs our help then we’re gonna help!”

“I did promise Captain Jeralt I’d always look out for them,” Leonie adds, nodding.

“Well, we’re waiting on a few people to arrive, so, just...hang tight I guess? Catch up on the good times? And we’ll talk this over once we’re all together.”

“Can we go see the Professor?”

“Maybe, but Seteth might shoo you away.”

Leonie makes a face. “I’d like to see him try.”

When they return, Raphael’s only comment is “that sure was a lot of flowers.”

Marianne and Lysithea arrive one after the other after dinner, while Teach is asleep. The Archbishop had come down to the dining hall to eat with them all, but then put their head down on a table and immediately lost consciousness. Everyone knew there was nothing to be done when Teach was asleep. They wouldn’t wake for thunder, fire or being carried by the arms and legs across a battlefield. Raphael volunteers to haul them back up to the third floor, which everyone is grateful for. The clergy probably wouldn’t forget seeing the ruler of Fódlan being carried over one shoulder for a while.

Marianne looks well, Lysithea looks… more tired than Claude remembers. Hilda’s eyes light up when she seems them both and she presses a tissue wrapped gift into both their hands. She doesn’t let go of Marianne’s hand until they reach Teach’s room.

Marianne insists she doesn’t need Teach awake to examine them and glides quietly around their bed, whispering notes to herself. 

“They’re running very hot,” she murmurs. “I’d expect more symptoms alongside a fever, but...”

She puts a wooden tube with a bell at one end to Teach’s chest, pressing her ear to it. After a moment of listening, she moves the tube slightly. And again, a little more insistently.

“Um,” says Marianne, urgently.

“Oh, uh, you’re not gonna get anything there,” Claude says quickly, realising. “They don’t have a heartbeat. Try their wrist instead.”

All eyes in the room turn to him. 

Claude squirms. “Anyone else read Captain Jeralt’s diary immediately after his tragic death? No? Just me I guess?”

“Okay, you are gonna have to go into  _ way _ more detail with that one later,” Hilda says. Marianne clears her throat and smooths down the front of her dress with her palms, then presses her fingers to Teach’s wrist and counts a pulse.

“Obviously this isn’t, um, my usual area of expertise, so maybe I’m wrong. But their blood pressure seems a little low. I think,” she says. “If it weren’t for… everything else, I’d say it was influenza, which you just have to wait out. You said they were walking around earlier, which is good. But… I’m worried.”

“How worried?”

Marianne pushes a strand of hair behind her ear nervously.

Lysithea has been mostly quiet since she arrived in Teach’s room. Since she arrived at the monastery, really. “You ok there, sugarplum?” Claude asks, only partly to break the awkward silence.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Lysithea replies shortly, but doesn’t meet his eyes. She’s still looking at Teach, and after a moment she adds “I think it would be best if I waited outside,” and abruptly leaves.

Ah, crap.

“Uh, I’ll leave the rest of this to the two of you,” Claude says, nodding thanks at Marianne as he leaves.

Lysithea has made it outside into one of the courtyards and is sitting upright on a bench, hands in her lap. She looks small and pale against the colourful lawns. She doesn’t acknowledge Claude when he sits down next to her, even when he does an overly dramatic arm stretch and sigh. 

“So, uh, long time no see,” he says eventually. “How’s stuff? How are your folks?”

“Why did you ask me to come here?” Lysithea blurts.

“Because we need your help?”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because… Teach is in trouble, and us Golden Deer gotta stick together?”

“So not because of my own issues, then?” she snaps.

“No, of course not—”

“Not because you saw someone fall terribly ill because of their Crest, which is clearly what is wrong with the Professor, and thought, hey! Why not ask Lysithea! She knows all about that!”

Claude is horrified. “Lysithea, no, I. I’m sorry. That wasn’t it at all.”

“I’ve been back home, trying to make things right for my family, and,” she is still looking determinedly at the courtyard in front of her rather than Claude, “for some reason I drop everything to come here anyway. And it turns out not even the Professor can come out of all of this in one piece.”

“Lysithea. Are you..”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says firmly.

Another silence, and Claude feels horrible, as well he should.

“Lysithea,” he says eventually, “I asked you to come here because you’re the smartest person I know, by far. It took you ten minutes in a room with Teach to work out what was up with them. And if you can do that, maybe we can work out how to fix it, and not just for Teach-”

“What if there isn’t a way to fix it, Claude?” she says, still angry. 

“Maybe not,” Claude says. “But we have to try. Look. You don’t have to stay, and I’m so sorry about before. I really am. I can understand if you want to return home. But I would appreciate it a lot if you did stay, and I know Teach would too. We’re getting Professor Hanneman here, and Linhardt, and for some reason I have a pretty good hunch Lorenz and Ignatz are going to turn up pretty soon with notes from Teach in their hands, and we will work this all out together. And you’ve always been the best of us, Lysithea, and not just your grades. You can pretty much do anything you set your mind to.” A pause. “Except go into the reception hall at night on a full moon.”

“I can just Warp myself out of here, you know.”

“I know.”

More silence, until Lysithea says “I’ll stay. For now. But I can’t stay long.”

“All the more reason to get cracking on this, then,” Claude says, and risks reaching over and giving her hand a little squeeze. She’s not smiling yet, but she does return the grip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still lots of thanks to my friends for encouraging me on this, and thank you to everyone who's left a comment on the last chapter, it means the world to me!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More reunions, a pep talk and a story.

Claude wakes up the next morning with a book still split open on his chest. He’s lucky he didn’t leave it on his face, like the time he was cramming for his sniper exam and woke up with trajectory equations printed backwards on his cheek. He’s still thinking of the stories he read last night as he trims his beard; a goddess descending from the skies, breathing life into the land, putting fish into the sea and plants into the soil. A fountain, a source of plenty. It’s impossible to separate any of this from legend, really, especially with the Church’s agenda so clearly on display on the library shelves, but he supposes it’s good to lay down the groundwork.

When he comes down for breakfast - well, brunch - Lorenz is there, with Ignatz, and well look at that, his premonition to Lysithea came true.

“What sort of time do you call this? Hardly a start to the day befitting of a king. As governor of Derdriu, I’d have had three meetings by now.”

“Hello to you too Lorenz,” Claude says sweetly, pouring a cup of tea from the pot in front of Lorenz. “Sure is great to pick up exactly where we left two years ago. How are you, Ignatz?”

Ignatz looks the most relaxed Claude has ever seen him and spends more time talking excitedly about the new banners hanging in the monastery than he does about what he’s been up to, modest as ever. Lorenz is Lorenz and that’s comforting, in its way. And having all of the Golden Deer back together is more reassuring than he’d expected, even with the gentle bickering and nonsense. They’ve solved bigger problems than this before. Sort of. 

Professor Hanneman and Linhardt arrive in the afternoon, impressive haste given the distance they have travelled. It does take Linhardt an extra half an hour to leave the carriage after it arrives so that he can finish his nap, though.

“Tell us everything,” Hanneman says, once Linhardt emerges, still yawning. “The Archbishop is manifesting additional powers? And they say it’s making them unwell?”

In the cardinals’ room, surrounded by the Golden Deer alumni, Flayn and Seteth, everyone recounts what they know, Hanneman and Linhardt both scribbling their own notes simultaneously as each voice chatters over the other. Hanneman has a lot more white in his hair these days, Claude notices, while Linhardt seems to be growing into his looks more and more as he gets older. His jacket could do with a decent pressing, though.

“This is  _ fascinating _ , I’ve never heard of such a thing in the whole of my career,” Hanneman breathes, still making notes as he talks.

“Which is rather par for the course when it comes to Byleth,” Linhardt points out, and since when was he on first name terms with Teach? “Honestly, I’m a little surprised that something hasn’t happened sooner. Can we see them? I  _ need  _ to see them.” Both of them sound extremely excited and Claude can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Yeah, we should all go see Teach! Make sure they know we’ve all got their back,” Raphael says. “Where are they?”

They all find Teach in the training grounds, sweeping a wooden sword against a straw dummy, their fancy coat shucked off onto the ground to leave them in rolled up shirt sleeves. It’s a pattern of five moves Teach used to drill into them over and over at the academy. It must be all muscle memory for them at this point. The floor of the training ground is thankfully wildflower free.

“Hello, everyone,” they say, not pausing their drill, as everyone files in one by one. They end up surrounding Teach in a loose semicircle. “It’s nice to see you, Hanneman, and Lorenz, and Ignatz. Hi, Linhardt. I still have one of your shirts upstairs. Do you want it back?”

Linhardt considers this. “Hmm. Yes, that’d be nice.”

Hanneman cuts in before Claude has the chance to process the last few sentences. “Archbishop, would you mind answering some questions?”

“Can I keep doing this?”

“If you like.”

Marianne looks concerned at this but Teach nods, takes a deep breath, and keeps swinging the sword. Hanneman clears his throat and examines his notes, and in tandem both him and Linhardt question Teach. Each answer is punctuated by the soft thump of wood against straw. This is how Claude remembers them best - from the war, and before. They move like a dancer, fast and agile, a born assassin back before the unpleasant business with Solon and even more deadly afterwards. By the time Hanneman and Linhardt have exhausted their list of enquiries, there’s a damp patch of sweat in the middle of Teach’s back.

“Considering what we know, it seems as if the effects of whatever is happening are increasing exponentially over time,” says Hanneman eventually. "We need to keep you monitored, blood pressure, weight, temperature et cetera and… I hate to ask this, Archbishop, considering past events, but it might be prudent for me to take a sample of your blood.” Linhardt makes a face but doesn’t make an alternative suggestion, which means he’s theoretically in agreement if not practically. 

“Certainly not,” says Seteth sharply. “Considering there are still members of those who slither in the dark unapprehended even now, it is far too dangerous. We had a report from Catherine and Shamir only days ago of a sighting - an individual who helped bring about the downfall of both Fhirdiad and Arianrhod during the war, no less.”

“Well, that’s why we brought Marianne in,” Hilda points out. “There’s no one here that we don’t trust.”

“Within this room, perhaps, but this monastery has many people in it and as past events have shown, we cannot expect its numbers to be free of those who might wish to harm the Archbishop, the Church or Fódlan.”

“But how can we cover every aspect of our research- I mean, diagnosis, without using every method available to us?”

“How do we even know it’s a Crest thing, anyway?” Raphael says suddenly. “Maybe Teach is just sick.”

“It’s quite clearly to do with the Professor’s Crest, Raphael,” Lysithea replies. “There’s no point wasting time with other theories.”

“Certainly it runs that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, but we shouldn’t be blind to other possibilities,” Lorenz chips in. “Magic goes far beyond what we know-“

“Linhardt, how come the Professor has one of your shirts?” asks Leonie, and then everyone is talking over each other all over again. Teach hasn’t replied to any of this but Claude can see their hands are starting to tremble and the straw dummy is looking rather worse for wear. 

“Okaaaay, I don’t know about you guys,” says Hilda loudly, before Claude can open his mouth, “but just watching the Archbishop just now has worn me out. How about we make some tea while they get washed up, and we can see about blood and stuff after that. Sound good?”

“Yes, well, I suppose so,” Hanneman. “It will take a day or two to run the full gamut of tests, though, so we shouldn’t delay.”

“I’m sure it can wait long enough for Teach to have a bath,” Hilda says firmly, and starts to usher Hanneman and Linhardt away. Just before she leaves she looks over her shoulder and mouths something at Claude, jabbing a finger in Teach’s direction, who is still stood in front of the dummy, though the wooden sword hangs limply at their side.

It’s the first time they’ve been alone in the same room for years, and Claude suddenly feels a little self conscious. But now isn’t the time for that. “How are you holding up, Teach? Gotta admit, if I was in the same position I’d be a little overwhelmed.”

Teach nods. “I’m glad you’re all here,” they say, “But. It’s a lot.” 

“I bet.”

“Everything’s so different now,” they say. “Not just…” they gesture at themself. “But everything. I don’t think I’m very good at all this.”

“Hey, from the standpoint of this foreigner, you’ve been doing great,” Claude says. “Relations between Almyra and Fódlan haven’t been this good, well, ever. We can’t get enough of your tea and our leather exports are through the roof, not to mention the luxuries. And even Morfis and Albinea have been sending envoys and…” Claude catches Teach’s expression, “aaaand we don’t need to talk about this stuff right now. Sorry.”

Teach sits themself down on the floor of the training ground, letting the sword fall into the dirt beside them. Silently apologising to his expensive trousers, Claude joins them.

“Do you ever miss it?” Teach says, once Claude is settled in the dust. They look a little more worn out and sweaty than they usually do after training, but their voice is steady.

“Miss what?”

“This place,” they say, waving a hand above their head. They could be talking about the training ground, or the Monastery, or they could be talking about Fódlan, but Claude has much the same answer whichever it is.

“Sort of. Well, no. Well, I miss the people. But you know me, you know what I want to do.”

“You’ve got your dream to fulfil,” Teach says, nodding. They clear their throat briefly. “Must be nice.”

“Hey now, you’ve got your own dreams, too.”

Teach shakes their head. “Sothis once told me that I was a boulder that rolls down any hill it’s on,” they say, and Claude isn’t sure how to deal with the implications of that sentence. “It feels more true every day. Especially these days when... I don’t know where she ends and I begin. If I ever did.” One of their hands strays to their chest. To where their heart should be beating. “It feels like there’s two of us trying to fit into the space for one.”

"You're dealing with something no one else in this world has ever experienced, Teach. It's understandable to feel like things are out of your control. But you got us all here, somehow. I’m still not quite sure how that one worked out. Anyway, my point is: you've done more for all of us in our lifetime than we can ever say, and I don’t just mean the war. Now let us help you." 

Teach doesn't reply, but something in their posture relaxes a little bit, like a string has been cut. 

“Teach, I… want to ask you something. Can I talk to the rest of the group about what happened to you when you were a baby? It’s going to ruffle a few feathers, that’s for sure, but I think it would help if we were all on the same page. You don’t need to be there when I do, if you don’t want,” Claude adds hastily. “Honestly, I think you should go have a bath and then maybe hang out with the cats in the gazebo for a while. Leave this bit to us."

Teach nods. “Okay. Yes. If you think it would help. Claude?”

“Yeah?” And Claude turns, and Teach is looking right at him, the first time they’ve made eye contact since Claude arrived, and despite everything, there’s that Relic-like glow that means he can’t turn away. If he thought he felt self conscious before he hadn’t felt anything yet.

“Thank you. For all this.”

“Come on Teach, you should know by now I'd do anything for you. We all would,” Claude says, then winks at them, just to take the edge off all this emotional honesty. Their mouth twitches upwards at the corners briefly.

“Oh, and thank you for next week too,” Teach says, and then gets up abruptly, with another clearing of the throat. “I’m going to go and wash now, and then I might go to the gazebo. Or I might sleep. I’ll find you all later.”

“No problem,” Claude says, and then, “wait, what did you mean by next week?” But Teach is already halfway out of the room.

Alone in the training ground, Claude lets out a long breath and rubs his hand along his chin. That's the second pep talk he's had to give in twenty four hours, both with mixed success. As ever, he hopes he can live up to his own words, but fake it til you make it has never let him down yet.

He looks at his hands; his nails need clipping. Which is weird, because he just did that this morning. Hanging out with Teach does weird things to you these days. 

\--

“How’s the Professor?” Hilda asks when Claude returns to the cardinals’ room. She’s sat behind Marianne, folding her long blue hair into a new braid. 

“They’re… in need of a break. I’ve sent them to hang out with the cats at the gazebo. Look, now we’re all here, I think there’s something everyone needs to know, and Teach has said it’s okay for me to talk about this. So.”

So he explains. Everything. What he read in Jeralt’s diary, and what he’d learned alongside Teach just a few years ago. How once upon a time there was a man and a woman who had a baby together, but the woman died as she delivered that new life. And the baby never laughed or cried or felt much of anything at all, and didn’t even have a heartbeat. Except they did, sort of, but that heartbeat was only by the power of a Goddess residing in a Crest stone. And some twenty years later someone had tried to seal them away in the darkness forever, and the only way to set themself free had been to fuse entirely with that power. And now they were like a tapestry, threads of humanity and divinity twisted and knotted together to make up the shape of a person. 

By the time he is finished everyone is silent. Marianne looks pale, her hands clasped together, and Seteth and Flayn are very deliberately avoiding everyone’s eyes. 

“How could Lady Rhea do such a thing?” Lysithea says, and she’s trembling with outrage. “To a baby? An innocent child?”

“Rhea had her reasons,” Seteth says quietly, still looking at the floor. “Reasons she never shared with anyone. It was an endeavour she never shared with me at the time, either, I learned of it at the same time as the Arch... as Byleth. What I do know, however, is that she insisted it was in order to save their life, and not done without reason or necessity.” 

Lysithea turns away, still angry. 

“So... what does this mean for the Professor?” Marianne asks, after an uncomfortable silence. Her hands are still clasped together in front of her.

“It would seem to lend quite a lot of weight to my theory,” Hanneman says, and his voice is a little more measured and thoughtful than it had been when he arrived. Tact has never been his strong point, but at least he’s not doing a jig at all this juicy new Crest knowledge. “The Crest of Flames alone contains tremendous power when carried in the blood, but we are in… rather uncharted territory when it comes to a Crest stone implanted within a person. For what it’s worth, based on what you have told us since we arrived, it seems to me a little like when you wait too long to cast a fire spell.”

Lysithea, Marianne, Ignatz and Lorenz nod, while the half of the Golden Deer who skipped out on magic after their first two months at the Academy wait patiently for him to continue.

“The magic builds, to a point, and some can hold it longer than others, of course, to make a larger and hotter fireball,” Hanneman explains. “But eventually it sort of… slips out of your hands.”

“It’s around then that you usually singe off your eyebrows,” Linhardt adds.

“So you think the Professor is… filling up with power?" asks Ignatz. 

“Intentionally or otherwise,” Linhardt says. “Very curious. It will be very interesting to watch their progress. Providing they don’t die, of course, which would be very upsetting.”

At their horrified faces, Linhardt adds “Worst case scenario. We’ll know more after the tests.”

“So how do we fix it?” Leonie asks, determinedly.

“Not sure yet,” Linhardt admits. “But with this new information we at least have a hypothesis to work with. If only Lady Rhea were here to explain her methods, it would make things a lot easier.”

Claude is pretty sure Lysithea is about two more sentences away from lunging at Linhardt, so Claude suggests they all go their separate ways until Linhardt and Hanneman have more information from their tests. 

“Okay, I have to know. How come the Professor has your shirt?” Hilda asks, as Linhardt is about to leave the room. 

“Oh, I suppose I left it here last year, before I moved to work more closely with Professor Hanneman.”

“You were living here?”

“Yes, with Byleth. But then of course this research trip came up, and then… oh. Hmm.” Linhardt pauses for a moment, obviously thinking. Eventually, he says, “I’m not sure I ever told them I wasn’t coming back. That’s unfortunate. I should probably go and explain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, Byleth forgot they were dating too.
> 
> Thanks again for reading and for everyone who has left a comment in previous chapters! I treasure each one like a precious jewel.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diagnosis continues, Catherine is here, and the Deer take an impromptu field trip.

Tests are eventually undertaken which, Hanneman asserts cheerfully, only broke half of his equipment. Everything overloads or pushes needles to the extreme ends of dials. It seems safe to say that if Teach is a vessel for the power of the goddess, then it’s like placing a bucket under a waterfall and being surprised when the surplus spills out erratically in every direction.

Teach takes this news with the stoicism Claude is used to, despite being knee deep in flowers again. "Okay. What next?”

“First we need to work out exactly what exactly is happening to you to cause such a reaction,” says Hanneman. “And how that is affecting you physically. And then, of course, we need to work out how to stop it.”

"Did Lady Rhea ever describe to you how she managed to implant a Crest stone within you? Was it surgical? A local teleportation spell? Some other method?” Linhardt asks.

Teach gives this some thought then replies, “I don’t remember.” 

"Um. Prof… Archbishop, I want to ask something of you," Marianne says. "If that's okay. I want to ask you to be careful. Seeing how hard you were training the other day… I'm a little worried that what your body is telling you doesn't necessarily, um. Match how it’s feeling. Does that make sense?" 

"But I like training,” they say, slowly, and it’s a little heartbreaking. 

"Well yes, um, but you're still having problems, and you know, not breathing sometimes and things, and… people aren’t supposed to do that. I’m worried about you." 

Teach has never been able to say no to Marianne at the best of times and if that weren't enough she's making a very sad face right now. 

“Okay. You’re right,” Teach says, only sounding mildly disappointed. Then they sneeze petals.

He leaves Teach in Hanneman, Linhardt and Marianne’s hands as they conduct more examinations and sets off towards the dining hall, mind whirring. Linhardt may not have been tactful about it, but Claude does still find himself wishing that Rhea was here to explain herself. Everything to do with the Crests, the Relics and the stones was academic for him, heard second hand or studied in censored books, while she had lived it all. Every bloody moment.

He’d put Failnaught aside after the war. Powerful as it was, as necessary as it had been to victory, it turned out by the end that touching it made his skin crawl. The shift of bone and joint under his hands, the way it sometimes twitched of its own accord; it sent a shiver of visceral horror down his own spine. He’d brought Parthia with him to the monastery instead, and he notices none of the other nobles have their Relics with them either. Perhaps they all feel the same. He knows Hilda was never particularly enamoured with Freikugel, and Marianne had barely wanted to look at Blutgang, let alone use it. Lorenz had given Thyrsus to Lysithea which had made her so incredibly powerful during the war she’d frightened herself a little by the end and given it back. He hasn’t even seen Teach with the Sword of the Creator, which used to be constantly at their side, and when he asked Seteth about it the other day he’d just replied curtly that it had returned to its final resting place. Which is probably for the best. 

He remembers how determined he’d been to get his hands on a Relic back when he was a kid at the Academy. To get a hold of the Sword of the Creator, even. And look at him now.

He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop when he walks past Seteth’s office. He’s just always been the sort of person to pay attention to things around him, and hearing Catherine’s voice behind the almost-shut door is enough to get him to pause.

“...to her old tricks,” Catherine is saying. “The outer reaches of the old Kingdom still have pockets of trouble, what with resentment over Duscur and the Western Church. It’s not difficult for her to poke an already angry hornet’s nest, even with the number of troops we have in Arianrhod.”

“And yet you cannot track her down?”

“It’s not that simple. She’s a powerful mage and she knows we’re looking for her. Any time we get a solid lead she’s already gone. Shamir’s staying in Fhirdiad to follow some more information we just received, but whether it’ll be more reliable is anyone’s guess.” A pause. “Claude, I know you’re outside the door, I can smell you.”

Whoops. “Well hey there, Catherine. That’s not creepy at all,” he calls through the door.

“Take it as a compliment. I think it’s whatever you put in your hair. My other guess was Lorenz but he’s more floral. Hey, let’s catch up soon, but let Lord Seteth and me get through this report first, huh?”

“Of course, of course, no problem,” he says, and then “so, who are you talking about?”

“Your Majesty,” Seteth calls warningly.

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” he concedes, then walks away very slowly. Annoyingly, Catherine waits until he’s almost down the stairs to the first floor before she starts talking again. She’s no fun. He got enough from the beginning to have a good guess at what they were talking about, though, and maybe even who.

A thought tickles the back of his mind, and he pauses mid step, a cartoon pose lit by the candle in the stairwell. If it really is who he thinks it is… oh. Hmm. It’s not his favourite thought by a long shot, but it probably shouldn’t be ignored.

He jogs lightly back up the stairs, not even bothering with subterfuge, and knocks again on Seteth’s door.

“Are you kidding me, Claude?”

“Sorry, sorry, but can I come in? It’s important. It might help Teach.”

A sigh from Seteth, and then “Very well, your Majesty. But please close the door properly behind you.”

He slips through the door, and there’s all six foot four of the captain of the Knights of Seiros. Catherine’s got one of her all-teeth smiles going on and he gives them both a little half bow of apology that he doesn’t really mean.

“Well well, look at you, King Claude. You’ve even managed to grow the rest of your beard since the last time I saw you.”

“And you’re as terrifying as ever, Cap’n Thunder, it’s lovely to see you. So, pleasantries over, were you guys just talking about Lady Cornelia?”

Catherine raises her eyebrows, which is enough for Claude to know he’s right. “It’s been mine and Shamir’s mission to track down the last of the stragglers of those who slither in the dark,” she explains. “Most of the big fish are dealt with at this point, but Cornelia went to ground straight after the Empire fell, while we were still busy, so she’s had a headstart. She’s good at hiding her tracks.”

“But you still think she’s in Faerghus? If I were her, I would have skipped out to Dagda, or somewhere else that doesn’t like Fódlan that much.”

“We think she’s trying to get a hold of a supply of gold and other resources she still has in the area. Despite everything, there’s still people with goodwill towards her in the area of Faerghus that became the Dukedom - apparently she used to be a famous healer back in the day, or similar. She’s using that to continue to stir up trouble, probably so that there’s enough distractions for Arianrhod that she can go after her stash without every knight in the Silver Maiden coming for her. With her local connections, she seems to always be a step or two ahead.”

“How do you think this information will help the Archbishop?” Seteth asks Claude.

“Linhardt was right when he said that things would be easier if Rhea was here,” Claude says, and then feels a little guilty at Catherine’s obvious flinch at the name. “We can’t do that, but we  _ do _ know a group of horrible people who have a lot of expertise when it comes to Crest stone experiments. And if you’re on the hunt for one already, especially a big cheese like Cornelia...”

Seteth looks aghast. “You cannot seriously be saying we seek help from one of those  _ monsters— _ ”

“'Seek help' is a strong way of putting it. Look, if the Knights of Seiros are already hunting for her, maybe we can tag along, help out, and maybe get some information out of her while we’re at it.”

Seteth looks doubtful. “She is hardly likely to give up such secrets at the point of capture, even if you do manage to track her down.”

“Then we bring her back here. Worst case scenario, the Knights of Seiros get a helping hand. Best case, we get a step further towards helping Teach, which so far is… basically no steps.”

Catherine looks doubtful, but shrugs. “I won’t say no to the help, especially if it might give us a lead to help the Archbishop. Lord Seteth filled me in on what’s happening. Think you’re up to it? Sure you haven’t gone soft since you’ve been in your fancy palace?”

“Why do people keep saying that?” Claude asks. “I’m ready to go if you can lend me a wyvern. I’m sure the others will be up for it too.”

—

“Ughhhhh, do we have to?” Hilda groans. “I didn’t even bring an axe with me! I haven’t trained in like,  _ forever _ .”

“Hilda, I’m sure I saw you at the training grounds yesterday,” Lorenz says. “But that matter aside, this is quite the journey for what seems to be a vague hope for answers.”

“The theory is sound, though,” says Linhardt. “Those who slither in the dark did all sorts of horrid things, so they probably tried this horrid thing too, or something similar.”

“I agree, though I am loathe to,” says Hanneman.

“C’mon guys, it’ll just be like old times,” Claude says. “Who’s with me?”

“I’ll come,” says Teach, then they blink and shake their head. “Oh wait, no I won’t. Sorry, Marianne.”

“Who’s with me, except Teach?”

“I’m in,” say Leonie and Raphael at pretty much the same time, and Lorenz nods, and Hilda says “ughhh” again but waves a hand in assent.

“Um. I should stay here, to help…” Marianne says.

“No way, you have to come if I am, Marianne,” Hilda pouts, and Marianne looks helplessly at Linhardt and Hanneman.

“I can keep an eye on Byleth if I  _ must _ ,” Linhardt says. “I’d rather that than go all the way to Faerghus. Far too cold to nap.”

“Oh, well. Thank you, Linhardt. Yes then, I’ll come.”

“Lysithea?” Claude says, looking over at her hopefully. She’s been looking at her hands as they all talk, smearing the beginnings of sigils into the table with a finger.

“If we are asking questions of Crest experiments, there are a few things I would be interested to know as well,” she says, and her hands clench shut. “Would that be possible?”

“I’m sure we can try.”

“Good. Then I’ll come too.”

—

At least it’s not winter, but a Faerghus summer is still mostly overcast, with low clouds clinging to the tops of mountains and wind whipping over the treeless plains and buffeting Leonie’s pegasus and Claude and Hilda’s wyverns as they glide. It always seems vast, endless and desolate here in a way it never does further south; it’s beautiful, too, but Claude is already missing the sun.

He watches Shamir forge ahead of the rest of the group, quick on her feet through the rocky ground and thick heather. Her tip for the location of Cornelia’s stash has brought them to an old fort that used to sit alongside a bridge, before the bridge was wiped out in a landslide fifty years ago and no one could afford to rebuild it. The fort survived, however, and Faerghans have always been a little bit funny about not knocking down old buildings, so there it stands, a mile or two away in the distance.

He waves down at Shamir to get her to stop and brings his wyvern down alongside her, Hilda and Leonie dropping down shortly after.

“Which direction are they supposed to be coming from? I can’t see anyone for miles.”

Shamir points downriver. “We don’t know exactly when, but the information’s fresh enough that we should have the jump. We should take position as soon as we can.” She only sounds a little impatient at Claude stopping their progress.

“Alright, fine. The fliers will keep making sweeps while you and Catherine get everyone in position.”

“Fine,” Shamir says, nodding, then gestures to the mounts and foot troops. Marianne and Lorenz are side by side on their horses, dark armour versus white. Lysithea glides a foot above above the ground alongside Raphael, which almost makes them the same height, while Ignatz keeps a watchful eye behind them.

Claude makes wide sweeps either side of the moving troops, pulling ahead and then dropping back, searching the heather for movement. There’s nothing, just the round of the river, the whistle of the wind in his ears and the occasional sheep noise. Large rocks are scattered across the hillsides as if thrown there by giants. This is the kind of countryside people write fairy tales about, really. No wonder Faerghan commoners are a superstitious lot. Though with all the strange things that happen in Fódlan already, it seems a little unnecessary to Claude to make up some more.

This is what he’s thinking about when the first arrow whistles past his shoulder.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude's plan has mixed success.

Claude taps his wyvern into a dive as more arrows zip past him, too close for comfort, and nocks an arrow into Parthia. “They’re in the fort!” he shouts, and every person on the ground snaps their head in his direction and immediately bristles with weapons. 

“Go long with Leonie and Hilda, take out who you can. Look out for the oubliette, that’s where the cache is!” shouts Catherine, and he’s already heading back up to join the other two fliers.

The fort isn’t big enough for any major defences but it sure does seem to have an awful lot of bows poking out of it, and now that he’s a little closer he can see mages too, and a ragtag group of swordsmen and heavy armour troops. They seem to be mostly on foot - there’s no stables he can see, either - but they can’t be too careful. And somewhere, presumably, is Cornelia, but there’s no sight of her from here. She must be inside, if she’s anywhere.

He waves Hilda and Leonie towards the archers they can see positioned at the ballistas, trying to cut off as much of their long range fire as they can while Catherine and the rest catch up. He thought he’d be rustier than this, but it’s not like all he’s done in Almyra is sit and review trade agreements. Just mostly.

When he next looks down Raphael is forging ahead, gauntlets on - he’s gaining ground on some of the frontline mages. Claude lays down some arrow fire so that they don’t see Raphel’s fists coming quick enough to strike first. Leonie follows Claude’s lead, while Hilda covers Lysithea and Ignatz’s approach. Catherine isn’t far behind and she cuts swathes through the bandits towards the fort. Lorenz and Marianne are picking off some of the brawlers to the flanks.

It’s a little too formulaic, and almost certainly just a ploy to buy Cornelia some time while she gets whatever she needs from the fort. 

“This is just a distraction, we need to get inside,” he calls to Shamir, who is picking off anything that she can see moving on the fort walls. Claude spots someone heading her way with a lance; he aims past her and takes them down.

“Take who you need and go. We’ll keep them busy out here,” Shamir says, not even flinching at the arrow whistling past her ear. 

"Wait for us by the front gate!" Claude calls, and then, “Golden Deer! With me!” and isn’t this all a little nostalgic?

With the Knights helping them through they fight their way through until Lysithea, Lorenz and Marianne are close enough to ready fireballs at the main gate. With that, they send the mounts out to safety and continue on foot. 

There are more fighters inside, though the blast has taken the ones closest to the entrance by surprise. Raphael takes down two more mages in the ensuing chaos before calling out “Wait, which way are we going again?”

“We need to go down!” Ignatz replies.

“Cool!” Raphael says, and punches another mage. There's timber worked into crude scaffolding along the walls in this space, to let the archers fire from the windows; another fireball from Lorenz and it comes crashing down over the back entrances. That should hold the soldiers from further within from getting to this part of the fort, at least for a little while. Before long they've cleared this room of danger, at least for now. 

“Hey, look at this!” Hilda says, and to the east there’s a floor hatch. She lifts it and the sounds of hammering and activity filter up, carried by a rush of cold air. Claude nods, satisfied. Looks like Cornelia is still here.

The stairs are narrow and awkward down to the oubliette, so Raphael and Hilda take the front and back to cover the group. What becomes quickly apparent is that it’s a much bigger room than the fort would suggest, and definitely not an oubliette. It reminds him a little of the vast space under the monastery which they’d found Flayn all those years ago - there was no way he was going to be the only one of the Deer who hadn’t been down there, so he’d visited it himself a week or two later, and almost gotten himself completely lost warping from one corridor to the next on those strange floor contraptions. The floor here is just as oddly ornate, but he doesn’t recognise any of the patterns.

The noise is coming further into the space; Claude puts his finger to his lips, then gestures inward. There seems to be a small group of soldiers packing things away. Some pile bullion into chests, another group are stashing books and papers into straw, and three mages carefully levitate large steel plates, the purpose of which isn’t immediately obvious, into wooden crates. Behind them, Cornelia watches impatiently, her hand on a warp tome.

“Keep hidden and take up positions,” he murmurs to the rest of the Deer. “If you can keep the rest of them busy, I'll go for her.”

Lysithea shakes her head. “Let me come with you. I can have that tome in ashes before she knows it.”

Claude nods, and the two of them move closer, Lysithea almost silent as her feet drift above the ground and Claude moving with a practiced stealth, weaving amongst the pillars and alcoves of the basement. They're almost close enough. 

He nods at Lysithea, who gathers a hot blue-white spark in her hands and floats it gently over towards Cornelia. It catches the corner of the tome so delicately Claude wants to give Lysithea a medal. It only takes moments before the whole thing is aflame and Cornelia drops it, shrieking.

The rest of the Deer duly take this as their cue and chaos erupts. Raphael and Hilda are to the front, Leonie and Lorenz either side and Ignatz snipes between them from the back. Claude dashes forward through the mayhem, Lysithea close behind, and with Cornelia still smacking the flames out of her dress it’s surprisingly easy to take her by surprise, bringing the tip of an arrow to rest against the back of her head and murmuring, “how about you just stay right here. Nice to meet you, Lady Cornelia.”

Her eyes bulge and she raises her hands slowly, spreading them far enough apart that it’s surrender rather than a spell. Claude carefully nudges her away from the rest of the fighting, Lysithea following in front with her own hands ready, watching her intensely.

"So, you found me, congratulations. Just kill me already and have done with it," she says. "I'd rather that than any time stuck with your dull, dull Knights of Seiros." 

"Oh no, we won't do that, you're far too useful, sorry," Claude says. “So, you sure seem busy. Why don’t you catch us up on what you’ve been up to for the last few years?”

"Why should I tell you anything?" she sneers. 

"It might make your stay at the Archbishop’s pleasure a little more tolerable.”

Her eyes widen again. “The Archbishop…? I remember you now. You're the Fell Star's little gang from the war. The Alliance officers. Well well, seems I’ve warranted quite the search party; I’m almost flattered.”

“Oh, don’t take it personally.”

“You were a healer, weren't you?” Lysithea demands. “Seems the perfect cover to continue your awful experiments. Or is that just the body you’re wearing?" 

"The healer who had this life is long gone, you stupid children. Stop asking about things you know nothing about." Her eyes narrow. "Why are you the ones to find me? hy now?”

“There’s no point talking about this now,” Claude says. “Let’s just get her back-” but Cornelia is still talking, still sizing them up.

“You have a reason. Something you need. Not this little white-haired girl, her time is already running out." 

"Shut up," Lysithea hisses, the sparks between her fingers intensifying. Cornelia smirks. 

"And why take me to the monastery at all? You could throw me in the depths of Arianrhod, or execute me like that bloodthirsty creature used to do to anyone who sneezed too loudly. Not unless you needed me at Garreg Mach. Not unless…" She pauses, and then laughs delightedly. "Oh, I know. The Fell Star. Thales was right - they're finally burning up." 

Claude jerks his arms, nudges the point of his arrow against her neck again as a reminder. "You sure think you're special, don't you? We don't  _ need _ you. We just want to know-" and he shouldn’t have said that last sentence, because she latches onto it like a flytrap.

“Oh, I’m right, aren’t I? Aww, you think you can  _ save _ the Fell Star? They’ll burn themselves into nothing and none of you beasts can do anything about it. Pathetic, really.”

She’s lying. She has to be, because the alternative is not worth considering. But it’s enough for the tension in Claude’s arm to falter, just for a moment, for the arrow to waver briefly. It’s enough. 

She reacts immediately, twisting like an eel and driving her elbows into his side to knock the bow sideways with strength he doesn’t expect at all, sending the arrow into the side of one of the wooden crates. The blow winds him; he scrabbles for another arrow but then a punch catches him in the nose.

There’s a lunge towards him and he ducks instinctively despite the pain singing in his head, and that’s for the best because a shiv is now driven into the wood beside his neck. Claude desperately drives a knee into her stomach and shoves Cornelia away from him, which gives them enough distance for Lysithea to throw a thunder spell at her. 

She shrieks and jerks with the shock but shakes it off faster than Claude expecting. Even so, Claude has an arrow nocked at her now, and lightning is still crackling between Lysithea's fingers. Cornelia readies her hands, breathing hard, warily looking back and forth between him and Lysithea. Claude's nose might be throbbing, and he can feel blood dripping down his chin, but there’s still two against one. 

“Whatever you do, there's no hope for them,” Cornelia spits, taking a step back. “The only one that can bring about their end is themself. They’ll swallow themself whole.”

“Shut up and maybe we you won’t get fried again before we take you back to the monastery,” says Lysithea, moving forward to keep the distance.

“You beasts think you won when you killed Thales? You’re fools who can’t understand or control what little power you have. This world was always ours," she sneers, widening the gap again. 

"Whose? Some washed up old dead guys and like three underground mole people? There's barely enough of you to organise a party in a beer hall these days," and Claude is getting fed up of this conversation now, so he says "Lysithea, let’s take her out to the front gate. We’ll have plenty of time to chat later." 

"Nice try," Cornelia says, and takes one more step back, and the floor beneath her glows. 

"No!" Claude blurts, and lets fly an arrow at her shoulder, but it hits the stone wall as it glides through the space where Cornelia used to be. Lysithea runs to the floor panel but nothing reacts when her feet hit it. 

Ah, shit. He's really messed this one up, hasn't he. 

"Claude!" 

Raphael and Marianne are here now, and all he can do is call out to them “Get everyone to search the fort. She's warped out somewhere."

Raphael immediately spins around and heads back the way he came, Lysithea grimly following, but Marianne walks over to Claude with a "Wait, stay still," and holds his chin gently. A rush of cold, and he feels his nose shifting back into place and knitting back together, which is almost as unpleasant as it getting broken in the first place. 

"Thanks, Marianne," he says, trying to keep the irritation at himself out of his voice. "I thought my roguish good looks were done for." 

"Did you manage to ask her anything?" 

"Sort of. But I think she got more answers from me than we did from her. I underestimated her." He can't hide his chagrin this time, and Marianne looks troubled. A moment later though, she brightens.

"Um. They didn't manage to get anything out of the fort. Even if we don't find her, we… have her money. And her books." 

—

The Deer and the Knights turn the rest of the fort upside down but there is neither hide nor hair of Cornelia. Claude can’t help but kick himself. He was too impatient when he should have been focused on the end goal, enjoying himself a little too much when he should have anticipated trouble. He should have known better than that. He’s still ruminating when Raphael catches up to him on the journey back.

“You doing ok, buddy?”

“Ah, I’ll be fine, just listing my own shortcomings.”

“Really? And here I was just coming to say I haven’t had that much fun in forever! It sure was nice fighting alongside you guys again. Being a knight’s great and all, but... I missed this.” Raphael grins, and Claude can’t help but smile too.

“Thanks for your help today, Raphael. I’ve kinda missed this too.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, huh? We got some good stuff today! And I’m sure we’ll get that mage lady some other day.”

“We should be careful,” Shamir says, frowning at the wagon of crates that has now joined the party. “If these items are valuable enough for her to have come back for them here, they might still be valuable enough for her to come back for them anywhere.”

“I’d like to see her try, with no weapons, no money and no troops,” Catherine scoffs, but adds, “you’re right, though. We’ll keep these under high security until we can decide what to do with it all.”

Not so much security that Claude can’t read all of the books, he hopes, because he’s  _ burning _ to. Even if there’s nothing in there that can help Teach, anything that precious to a member of those who slither in the dark has to be something Claude needs to know. And if there is something that can help Teach, then at least losing Cornelia will not have been in vain.

The sky brightens as they get closer to Garreg Mach, the bright wildflowers on the lawns like a living mosaic, the dome glittering in the early evening sun. The monastery is truly beautiful, he has to admit it, even now. Especially now, even, with poppy petals dancing in the wind through the spires.

Less dancing, now that he looks at them, actually. More kind of just… spiralling. Quite rapidly, around one particular tower.

“Uh, guys?” He calls. “I’m gonna ride on ahead to catch up with Teach. I’ll see you up there.” He vaults onto his surprised wyvern with an apologetic pat of the neck and urges it into the sky towards the monastery.

He lands on the balcony across from Teach’s room on the third floor with a slightly undignified skid across the stone and instinctively raises his arm across his face. Petals and leaves whip across him, his cape pulled taught away from him and almost dragging him sideways. His wyvern snarls in complaint, claws scrabbling.

“Sorry, love, just hang on here a bit longer,” he says, and with his arm still raised he pushes his way through the debris into the third floor. The wind does not let up once he is in the corridor, which is not a good sign. Papers cartwheel along the floor, billowing out of the teachers’ offices and piling in drifts in corners. Outside Teach’s room is Flayn, who jumps in surprise at the sight of him but then sinks in relief. Her hands are clamped to the sides of her head, trying to hold her hair in place, though the ends of her curls spill between her fingers and whip into the air.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, Claude, I am so glad you have returned. The Archbishop- they-” Flayn looks pitifully towards the interior of Teach’s room.

Teach is in bed, bolt upright, their hands twisted into the sheets, their eyes screwed tightly shut. Wind spirals around them as strong as a gale, the flowers that had grown in the room the other day ripped from their roots, now battering the walls, the furniture, spilling out of the window.

“Teach?” Claude calls, and when they open their eyes at the sound of Claude’s voice, Claude could swear they almost flicker out of sight, until their eyes screw shut again.

“Claude. I don’t know what to do,” they say. “If I open my eyes I- I lose when I am. I don’t know what to do.”

Claude doesn’t know what to do either. He’s never seen anything like this before. He pushes closer to the bed. “Teach. You need to try to calm down, or something, I don’t- I don’t know-”

“I don’t know how to stop it,” they say, and they’re talking almost too fast for Claude to understand. “Everything feels wrong. I can’t... where’s El? When is- is this when you go back? I don’t know what to do.”

“Where are Hanneman and Linhardt?” Claude says to Flayn. “They shouldn’t have been left alone!”

“They went out to get supplies to repair their equipment, Byleth was asleep, I thought they would appreciate the respite!” replies Flayn, and there’s tears in her eyes now. “Claude, whatever do we  _ do _ ?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crisis averted, but more questions than answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An emetophobia warn for this chapter - just a brief mention though.

Claude has no idea what to do. The wind is still whipping around Teach at a speed that makes it difficult to see, to move, to think. All he can think is that in the centre of the storm, grass and leaves whipping into their hair, furniture sliding across the floor, Teach looks…alone. And scared. 

“Flayn, can you go down to the front gate and find Marianne when the rest of the group arrives? They won’t be long.”

“What will you do?”

“Not sure, but either way we need Marianne,” Claude says, and Flayn still looks panicky, but runs towards the stairs. 

Alone and scared are emotions Claude’s pretty familiar with. He can work with that, maybe.

So he pushes his way to the edge of the bed, holding onto the frame with one hand, and says, “Hey, Teach. I know everything feels wrong, but let’s just talk, okay? Try to focus on what I’m saying instead of… anything else.”

Teach doesn’t reply, but their hands twitch in the sheets. Claude edges a hip onto the side of the bed so he can perch.

“Okay. It’s the eighteenth of the Blue Sea moon, 1188. You’re at Garreg Mach Monastery. It’s a nice sunny evening, there’s a few puffy clouds, and everywhere outside of here is not so windy. I’m here next to you, your friends are all on their way back, they should be here soon, they’ll come and help...”

Teach shakes their head stiffly. “I can’t… that’s not... Claude, tell me things that have already happened. Things we both know.”

“Uhhh…” Claude doesn’t think talking about the war right now is the greatest idea, so he looks wildly around the room for inspiration. He eyes fall on a pile of textbooks shoved in a corner. “Hey, remember the time you tried to teach me how to cast a miasma spell just ‘cause I kept bugging you about it? And I basically just filled the classroom with noxious fumes instead?" Not his finest hour, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“You were... sick,” says Teach, slowly. Their eyes are still shut. “All over my desk.”

“Yeah, and you had to take me to the infirmary, and Professor Manuela yelled at us both for trying it indoors.” 

“I didn’t know a miasma spell could even break like that,” Teach says. Claude’s not sure, since he’s still being battered by flowers, but he thinks the wind has slowed a little.

“Yeah yeah, alright, no need to rub it in. And after I was so careful with all my poisons, right?”

“I found one of your poisons on the floor outside the classrooms once.”

“Really? Whoops. Anyway, I just wanted to see if I could infuse solutions with miasma. Never tried that one again, that’s for sure.” Claude looks around the room one more time, sees the setting sun through the open window. “What about when we were travelling to that mission on the Brionac Plateau, and we all decided to camp out on the way back because the weather was so nice? And then Raphael got eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

“They only bit him, not anyone else,” Teach says. “He said his muscles made him extra tasty.” Their fingers relax in the sheets slightly. The wind drops a little more. “I like being outside.”

“You can hear everything better out there,” Claude says softly. 

“Open sky.”

“Less people.” 

“Wind... in the trees.” Teach takes a deep, slightly wheezy breath in, and a long breath out. And the wind drops, with the gentle rustle of paper and plants rolling to a stop on the ground.

After a long pause, Teach opens their eyes, and then lets out another breath. “Claude. Thank you.”

“Teach, that was all you, I just talked about stupid stuff from when I was a kid,” Claude says, but he can hear the relief in his own voice. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Teach says. They look pale, and their voice is weary. “I was asleep, and I dreamed of her, and then I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake, and everything was…” they gesture at the room, the corners of their mouth falling. “I’m sorry about the mess.”

“It’s okay, Teach. We cleaned up worse when we took back the monastery, that’s for sure. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

"I don't like this," Teach says quietly. "I don't like not knowing where I am."

"We're going to fix it, one way or another. I promise." Claude reaches for Teach’s hand to give it a squeeze and-

Teach opens their eyes, and then lets out another breath. “Claude. Thank you.”

“Um,” Claude says. He looks around. “Huh. You’re- that was all… you.” 

“I don’t know what happened,” Teach says with a weary voice. “I was asleep, and I dreamed of her, and then I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake, and… everything was…” their words slow, and their eyes meet Claude’s, and widen with some sort of... recognition.

Claude gets up from the bed and takes a step back, and Teach's hands retreat under the sheets. 

“Archbishop!” Flayn runs in, hand in hand with Marianne. “Oh, I was so worried, I am so glad you are alright.”

“I’m sorry about the mess, Flayn.”

“Oh, hush, we dealt with far worse when we reclaimed the monastery,” Flayn says. “Now, do lie back and let Marianne check you over.”

“I’m feeling tired again.”

“Um, just let me check you over, Professor, and then you can get back to sleep.”

Marianne gently brushes past Claude to rest a palm against Teach’s brow and Claude takes a few more steps back, watching the bustle of activity around the bed. “I’m just going to leave you all to it,” he says, slowly, and backs his way out of the room.

“Huh,” he says to himself again, when he’s alone in the corridor.

—

No one is particularly happy that Cornelia has given the Knights of Seiros the slip once again but Hanneman and Linhardt descend upon the books that were found at the fort with relish. They initially squirrel themselves away in the common room but Claude and Lysithea elbow their way into the research party by bringing them cake and then refusing to leave. Linhardt eventually passes them three books each and tells them to make themselves useful. 

“Some of it is encoded - we have about a quarter of the cipher so far - and a lot of it is couched in quite pompous language about the superiority of the Agarthans and suchlike. But if you cut to the chase it concerns the application of Crest stones in transformation, such as we saw with the Imperial army and its demonic beasts,” Linhardt says as they settle together at a desk. “Which is certainly useful, if horrifying.”

“You’re thinking that the theories will overlap?” asks Lysithea. 

“Yes, though the creation of demonic beasts mostly took advantage of the extreme magical reactions of incompatible Crests, while Byleth has the Crest of Flames both in their blood and, of course, literally within their body. You can’t get more compatible than that. Either way, there’s the issue of massive build up of power manifesting in different ways.”

“So you propose that it’s a similar reaction but the difference is the compatibility of the Crests," says Lysithea. “The power of a Crest stone overwhelms someone who doesn’t have a Crest and transforms them, but since the Professor is compatible, and since the Crest of Flames is so powerful anyway, it is increasing and leaking out in strange ways.”

“It’s a working theory, but yes.”

“The only way to separate the beast from the person was to kill the beast,” Lysithea muses. “Which killed the person too.”

“Presumably, though that depends if the person was even alive past the point of transformation or if their fate was sealed as soon as it began,” Hanneman says.

“Either way, that doesn’t say much about how we can stop what’s happening to the Professor.”

“Indeed. Separation seems to be the solution, but it’s all very well saying that,” says Hanneman. “How in the world we can separate the Archbishop from the Crest stone at all is another matter entirely. If, as you say, it has been a part of them since birth, we have no idea how we could remove the Crest stone safely, or if removing it without harming the Archbishop is even possible.”

“So in conclusion, what we’re working with at the moment is that the only way to help Teach is to separate them from the Crest stone somehow, and we have no idea whether that would kill them anyway or not,” says Claude.

A silence falls over the group.

“We still have a lot to read over,” Hanneman says eventually. “We can perhaps narrow our scope to the exact mechanics regarding implanting and, if of course there is anything, removal.”

“Do you know anything about Crest powers causing hallucinations?” Claude says suddenly, and three faces turn to look at him.

“There are stories of descendants of a Crest bloodline claiming to relive the memories of their ancestors, if that’s what you mean,” Linhardt says. “Though those have very little evidence to back them up. Most of them are used to sell lurid historical paperbacks, if Bernadetta’s bookshelves at the Academy were anything to go by.  _ All the Margrave’s Men,  _ and suchlike.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Something on your mind, Claude?” Lysithea says.

“Nah, nothing, just an idle thought. Forget I said anything.”

—

Claude heads back to his room for what feels like the first time in forever, a lifetime of travel to Faerghus and back, poring over books with Lysithea, Hanneman and Linhardt, losing track of time until the sun comes up again. He needs a shave, and a change of clothes, and maybe a new head so that he can think straight again.

Every time Claude thinks he has the relationship between Crests, Crest stones and Relics clear in his mind something seems to come along to stop it making sense. They’re all inextricably linked, the Relics heavy and useless without the other two, the Crest stones actively dangerous if handled by the wrong person. 

What is it Cornelia had said about the Fell Star?  _ The only one that can bring about their end is themself. _ It was probably just a threat. But in a way, Teach was made up of so many selves these days that Cornelia’s words could mean anything. And on top of that, the things that are happening to Teach just seem to be getting stranger and stranger.

He still can’t form words for what happened when he reached for Teach’s hand. Anything he wants to call it skitters away from his common sense.

Whatever the truth is, they’re trying to put together a puzzle where half the pieces are hidden away, or they could have just been thrown out the window entirely at this point. Or something. Claude can feel the metaphor getting away from him, which definitely means he needs to sleep.

When he opens the door a sweet smell lingers in the air; looking down at the soup bowl on his desk, he sees the frangipani flowers, fresh as the day he picked them. He should have known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might be a little slower now I’m coming to the end of what I already had written, but we’ll see how I get on! As ever, thank you so much for the comments and kudos.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rallying of friends, a panic, and an accident.

Teach has not left their room since Claude last saw them. Since whatever happened, happened. Their absence hangs over the rest of the group like a cloud; Marianne says that they’re mostly sleeping, but whenever she says it her hands smooth anxiously over the front of her dress. And the glimpses that Claude gets of them through a briefly opened door make his heart thump in his chest hard enough to feel like it’s trying to escape, painful in its anxiety. Claude’s seen Teach fainted, and he’s certainly seen them asleep, but even that usually has a deliberateness to it - step one: place head on flat surface, step two: unconscious. Claude has never seen them exhausted. Pale. And still so alone, even when others are bustling around the bed.

“Their temperature is still very high,” Marianne says to him one afternoon, in a soft voice. “And their appetite comes and goes. I’ve been getting them to eat when I can, but more often than not they say they feel nauseous.” Marianne looks tired, too; Hilda has an arm around her, rubbing her shoulder with some concern, as the three of them perch together on a bench outside the student dormitories. 

“It’s not just the physical symptoms, anyway, right, Marianne?” says Hilda. “There's the plants. The winds. Thunder right there in the room, sometimes. Glasses smashing with nobody touching them! Someone could get really hurt. It’s crazy.”

“A flock of starlings tried to fly through the window yesterday,” continues Marianne. “I had to let them in so they wouldn’t hurt themselves on the glass, poor things, but then, the mess...” she slumps, and Hilda squeezes Marianne against her, reaching her other arm around to complete the hug. 

Claude wishes he had something reassuring to tell them all about how the research is progressing, but there’s not much for him to say. Cornelia’s books are horrible and fascinating, but they create as many questions as they answer. Where not written in their dense ancient code, they describe the transformation of a human into a demonic beast in lurid and unpleasant detail. Lysithea has found a tract of text describing a process of implanting Crest stone shards into humans, but nothing they read has reassured them that there is a safe way to remove it.

Seteth keeps asking if they think Teach will be well enough to perform the Rite of Rebirth at the end of the month, and all Claude currently knows is that either what is happening to Teach will kill them, or stopping it will. 

But he can’t say that out loud. Not to Seteth, and certainly not here. Suddenly he feels as tired as the other two look.

A shadow casts over the three of them, and they look up to see Raphael, Leonie, Ignatz and Lorenz, arms folded.

“Uh, hey, what’s wrong?” Claude says, surprised.

“You need to delegate,” Leonie says firmly. “I know you’re not in charge here, but you still need to delegate. Or someone else does. All three of you look exhausted.”

“We are concerned for the Professor and yet we find ourselves at a loss for what to do,” Lorenz continues. “The debt we owe them will never be repaid, but we must try where we can.”

“Do you need us to go look for the mage lady?” Raphael says. “Or something else? I keep trying to help out with stuff around the monastery, and I helped Marianne clean up after the birds, but I kinda just feel like I’m getting in the way.”

They all look anxious, and Claude’s heart sinks further. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he says, honestly. “We’re working stuff out as best we can, but… I don’t know. If you have other places you need to be, I’m sure Teach would understand. I sure do.” He doesn’t want to say goodbye to any of them, not like this, but the group isn’t a commander and their officers, anymore - they have no obligation to stay.  _ You should come visit sometime _ is hardly a royal decree.

Leonie glares. “We’re not going to leave the Professor while they’re sick! Don’t be ridiculous. We just want to help. If you tell us what to do, we’ll go and do it.”

“Look,” Ignatz says gently. “What we’re trying to say is… let us take some of the burden, ok? We want to help.”

“Marianne, Hilda, allow me to make you a pot of tea somewhere. I have brought some of a delicate new Leicester blend with me from Derdriu, it will surely calm your minds and senses,” say Lorenz, offering them both a hand to stand up from the bench.

“And I’ll go check on the Professor,” Leonie says, pumping a fist. “If there’s anything I’m not sure about, I’ll just bother Linhardt. I’ll carry him up to their room if I have to.”

“I’ll help. We don’t want any more of those birdies in Teach’s room,” says Raphael. 

“Claude, I can help you and Lysithea with your research, if you need,” Ignatz says. “Even if it’s just taking notes for you.”

“Actually,” Claude says, making a decision, “Ignatz, if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on Teach with Raphael… Leonie, how fast do you think you could take a pegasus to Enbarr?”

“For the Professor, as quick as you need,” she replies.

“Thank you. I need you to find Professor Manuela and bring her back to Garreg Mach, if she can make it. I think Marianne could do with some backup. If you’re okay with that, Marianne.”

“There’s no need to trouble Professor Manuela,” Marianne replies, in such a weary voice that Claude knows it’s the right decision.

“No problem,” says Leonie, determinedly. “Let’s get to it.”

\--

It’s on the way back from seeing Leonie off that Claude sees Shamir with a group of knights. The knights carry crates, two people to a box.

“Need a hand?” he says to Shamir, who’s holding a chalk and scratching marks onto the side of each crate as they pass her.

“You sure? You look tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure then, help the corporal over there with that last pack,” Shamir says, and Claude finds himself wishing he’d worn something a little less prone to snags as he crab-walks opposite the knight, shifting a box that is far heavier than it looks across the monastery grounds and to a cobbled slope near the Knight’s Hall that leads below the ground. When Claude reaches the threshold of the slope, a hand claps on his shoulder, and Shamir is there with another knight.

“Thanks. Collin and Donnagan can take it from here.”

“Oh, ok,” Claude happily surrenders the weight, and then frowns. “Wait, you won’t let me down there? Shamir, how long have you known me now?”

“Eight years. And no, I won’t, you’re not a Knight of Seiros. Don’t get pouty about it, I wouldn’t let any of your friends down either.” 

“So what is all this stuff?”

“Last of what we retrieved from the fort. Dangerous stuff. We need it somewhere secure.”

“Dangerous how?”

Shamir looks sharply at him. Claude huffs. “Come  _ on _ , Shamir, I was on the mission that retrieved it all and you won’t tell me? Did our little road trip to Faerghus together mean nothing to you?”

“No, it didn’t. But fine, since I know you won’t stop asking me otherwise: there’s some pretty powerful weapons in there. Not Relics, but powerful enough. And there’s some nasty spring loaded traps from Arianrhod. I don’t want anyone going near them without the proper training.”

“That’s fair.” Claude’s pretty sure Shamir isn’t telling him everything, but there’s no point pushing the issue right now. Claude cranes his neck to look down the ramps, but the contrast between the bright sunshine and the dark cellar hides any sign of what might lie beneath. Shamir jabs him in the shoulder with a finger, jerking him back to focus on her.

“If I see you poking around here after I’ve told you not to, you know that as you’re a foreign king I could accuse you of an act of war, right?” she says, as flatly as ever.

“You’re not from Fódlan either.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Ah, fine. Well, thank you for this.”

Shamir’s eyebrows raise. “Why are you thanking me? You did the work.”

“Yeah, but it made me feel like I actually achieved something for the first time in days.” 

Shamir shrugs. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. The Archbishop’s always been one of a kind, that doesn’t always mean in a good way. You’re all dealing with something nobody else has had to deal with, ever.”

Claude laughs a little. “Funny. That’s pretty much what I said to Teach last week.”

“Hey, Claude?”

Claude turns, and there’s Raphael and Ignatz, looking somewhat flustered. “Oh, hey. What’s wrong?”

“There isn’t somewhere the Professor has been… going, right? When they’re not in bed?”

“They’re out of bed? They shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” says Raphael. “We went up to the room after we talked to you guys and…. they’re not there. Or anywhere on that floor. Or anywhere else that we’ve looked.”

—

Seteth is beside himself. “How could the Archbishop have managed to go missing? In their condition, nonetheless? This is- this is like Flayn all over again, we need to immediately send the knights-”

“Lord Seteth, while I understand your concern and the urgency, might I suggest that under the circumstances it might be best not to immediately bring this to the attention of the rest of the monastery?” Lorenz says, his voice measured and calm, though his fingers pluck distractedly at the silk rose on his jacket. He has a point. With just a few days to go until the Rite of Rebirth, the grounds are fit to burst with pilgrims and dignitaries preparing for the celebration.

“Lord Lorenz is right, brother,” Flayn says. “I know what you are feeling, but we must not cause a panic. While there is cause for concern that the Archbishop is unwell, it also means that surely they could not have gone far.”

“You… may be right. But we have to act quickly,” Seteth insists.

“Then we’ll all look,” Raphael says firmly. “Just us. We can check all the tunnels we found during the war and stuff.”

“Great minds. I was going to say the same thing,” says Claude. When the threat of the Empire - and of Hubert von Vestra’s dizzyingly complex intelligence network - had been at its peak, Claude and Judith had ordered an extensive survey of all the points of entry and exit throughout the monastery. They had started by amending an existing map of the monastery grounds, but as each inked line of secret passages had run over one another, the sheet had become an incomprehensible tangle. They’d had to start over, separating each out and categorising them by source, destination and type. Many of them had been bricked up or otherwise blocked in the name of security, but Claude knows there are still more ways for people to leave - or to enter - than the monastery gates.

“We can all take a section of the monastery and some of the passages. Keep calm. Make it look like a stroll. Look at the scenery, admire the architecture. If we’re thorough, I bet we can find Teach in no time. Hilda and I can get back on a wyvern each, check the grounds.

“There’s enough of us on our own to be pretty thorough,” Ignatz says, nodding. “We’re sure to find them.”

Seteth looks grim. “Three hours,” he says. “And then I raise the alarm.”

They all set out in separate directions with the anxious tension of a bow string, winding through the chattering crowds for any glimpse of the Archbishop. Claude and Hilda get back on wyverns and try to make their slowly expanding loops of the monastery look as casual as possible. 

Back when he was put on sky watch back at the Academy, Claude used to make a little competition out of how quickly he could spot Teach on the ground. The trick used to be to find the fastest moving object within the monastery walls, though the trail of their gown’s sleeves behind them used to help as well. Below him now, Claude can spot Marianne weaving through the pilgrims at the fishing pond, Raphael leaving the greenhouse, Ignatz traipsing through the wildflowers towards the gazebo, Flayn heading down the stairs to the graveyard. He can see the waving banners and their intricate embroidery. He can see the multicoloured dome of the cathedral. He cannot see Teach.

He does not think of them collapsed somewhere, unconscious or too ill to call out. Or stolen away like Flayn had been. Or sealed back into the darkness. He can't think about that. His heart thumps unpleasantly in his chest again; too strong, too quick.

“They can’t have gone far, right?” Hilda calls to him. “They were so tired before. We’ll find them. Can you see them? They can’t have gone far.” She’s tugging nervously at her wyvern’s reins in a way that makes it turn its head and give her a disagreeable honk, but she doesn’t notice.

“Hilda, that’s not helping.”

“I knooow, I’m sorry, I just- I feel awful,” she says. She looks so crestfallen. “We shouldn’t have left them alone. I just wanted a little break, some tea with Marianne...”

“Hey, hey, this isn’t your fault, or anyone else’s. We just need to keep calm and keep looking.” 

“Hey, is that- look at that,” Hilda says suddenly, pointing towards the outskirts of the monastery. There’s a line of trees with soft pink blossom leading out towards the old chapel. As the two of them watch, another tree bursts into bloom.

“Good spot,” Claude says, and the two of them tap their wyverns into a sharp descent towards the chapel.

They land the wyverns a few trees back and follow the blossom to the ruins of the old chapel, where sure enough, Teach stands alone. It’s a warm day, but they’re shivering, and they’re pale as a ghost. They wear none of their finery anymore, just a white shirt and linen trousers, their hair tangled with those red and white ribbons. Their jacket rests on their shoulders like an awkward blanket. 

“Professor?” Hilda calls. “Are you ok?”

“Oh,” they say, their voice croaking as they speak. “You found me.”

“Why are you out here? You should be in bed! You had us worried sick.”

Teach takes a wheezy breath, then clears their throat. There’s a thin patina of sweat on their face giving them a sickly sheen. “I… we… just wanted some air. It feels easier when we’re outside.”

“There’s a reason you’ve been in bed, Teach. I’m not going to lie to you, you look terrible. Please, let one of us put you on a wyvern and take you back, huh?”

“I know I’m sick, you don’t have to tell me. I can feel it. Even though we shouldn’t be sick,” Teach says, and is that frustration in their rasping voice? “I’m so tired of this. Tired of being tired. We have so much life inside! Why are we dying instead?” They pull the coat around themself, still shivering violently, and it breaks Claude’s heart. 

“We’re trying our best to work out what’s wrong, Teach. We just need you to take care of yourself while we do that, ok? We… I'm worried about you, " and Claude hears his voice crack as he says that last sentence, feels his throat close up.

“We just wanted to escape the darkness, and live,” Teach mumbles, and then they sway, and their knees buckle underneath them.

Claude and Hilda lunge forward at the same time to catch them, a cry on both their lips. Claude’s just a little closer; he grabs Teach, and as the limp weight of their body thumps into Claude’s arms, his vision blurs

and all the colours of the world seem to change, impossibly,

and everything goes black

and then

Claude is outside the chapel. Alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude finds Teach.

Claude looks around him, taking one step forward and then another backward again, wiping the back of his hand over his damp eyes, trying to calm his breathing. They’re gone. He doesn’t understand how, but they’re gone.

This doesn’t make any sense. That didn’t seem like any warp spell he’s ever seen, but as his time at Garreg Mach this month has shown, that doesn’t mean anything. Is this an ambush? He reaches behind him for Parthia and whistles for the wyverns. They should come bounding his way, but there's nothing but the rustle of wind across tree branches. Pink blossom petals dance across the floor of the chapel grounds and spill from the trees with a gust that makes Claude shiver.

"Teach? Hilda?" 

There's no response. 

Arrow nocked into his bow, he walks through the trees back to where they had left the wyverns. They aren't there, but there’s no sign they’ve been taken. In fact, there’s no flattened grass or claw marks to show where they might have landed, no mess from while they were waiting. No sign they had ever been there at all. 

Claude can see the spires of the monastery through the tops of the trees, farther away than he would prefer. He takes off at a brisk run, still whistling every so often just in case. The landscape is peaceful. No sign of danger, no presences sensed amongst the trees. It doesn’t make sense.

As he gets closer to the monastery, the sense of wrongness that prickles at his skin only increases. When he’d passed over the marketplace just a short while ago it had been thronged with merchants selling wooden icons of the Goddess, prayer books with the Crest of Seiros pressed into the front, flowers and candles for dedications. From his approach, he can see the blacksmiths and the armoury, a couple of the usual grocers. Nothing special.

Claude thinks of the last time he touched Teach, of the moment he could have sworn impossibly repeated itself. Of the words he wanted to call it but couldn’t bring himself to. He... still can’t say it. But as he enters the grounds of the monastery, still so comparatively peaceful, something tells him to stow Parthia again. To not to enter through the front gate, to avoid the cheerful chirp of the gatekeeper or any overly attentive clergy.

The review of the passages of the monastery had been a project Claude had taken more personal investment in than was probably necessary, so he’s got a couple of options of paths he can take if he doesn’t want to cause a fuss. It’s a case of heading via the knight’s hall and then squeezing past some of the storage boxes into an alley. Then he’s looking for the paving slab with the odd notches at its corner. Digging an arrow into the gap enough to lever it up allows him to drop into a cramped space that, with a little bit of scraping his knees on the stone along the way, gets him on his way to the monastery stairwells.

While Claude has been staying on the third floor it has been an odd pastiche of life in the dormitories - the group of them criss crossing each other’s paths in the corridor, knocking on one another’s doors, passing bags of tea leaves and cakes around, all with a hushed tone so as not to disturb Teach further down the hall. But when he makes his way up there, there is not a sign of life. When he tries the door to his room, it is locked.

He’s right, isn’t he? About what he’s thinking. As impossible as it is.

The trickiest part of navigating through the monastery is crossing the floor of the audience chamber into the advisory room, having to time his entrance with the exit of a pair of bishops and then ducking past a nun before Seteth’s head can turn his way. 

But there he is, and there... is Teach. 

Sat at their desk, calm, their jacket neatly buttoned, their circlet on their brow, even though they shouldn’t be. Their eyes bright, their face full of colour, even though they shouldn’t be.

“Claude,” they say, and they smile, a real smile, not a turn of the corners of their mouth, and Claude is going to start crying again if he isn’t careful because this sure has been a day. “Nobody said you were visiting.” 

“Teach,” Claude says, and his voice cracks a little bit. “This is going to be a weird question, but can you tell me what the date is?”

Teach doesn’t react to the question but does fish a monthly schedule out from the papers on their desk to regard it carefully. “It’s the twenty-second of the Harpstring moon,” they say.

Claude closes his eyes briefly, trying to regain his composure.

“Would you like tea?” Teach says, standing up. 

“No, no that’s- that’s fine. You just sit. Uh, Teach, I know I’ve just sort of dropped in on you out of the blue here, but I’ve got to tell you something, because at the very least you are the person most likely to just believe me.”

“Oh. Okay. Yes,” Teach says, and waves at the chair in front of their desk, sitting back down again. Claude doesn’t sit, too tense to move. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just gonna come out and ask this. Do you have power over time itself?”

Teach stares at him, mouth open, and then shuts it with a click, and then opens it again, and then looks from side to side as if searching for an exit that is not there. Then, they say: “Yes.”

Claude stares at Teach. Teach stares back.

After a moment, they say “Did you want to know something else or was that why you’re visiting?”

Claude starts laughing. He can’t help it. It’s a little bit more hysterical than he usually goes for, but he can't help that, either. It’s just another impossible thing casually falling out of Teach’s mouth, after a day of impossible things. Another time that they take what everyone knows is true and twists it ninety degrees so nothing makes sense anymore. Even the patient way Teach is waiting for Claude to stop laughing is just like the old times.

“Okay. Okay. Sorry. It’s been a long day. Whew. Okay. What I need to tell you, Teach, is that when I woke up this morning, it was the twenty-second of the Blue Sea moon, and things are not going so great.”

Teach frowns. “No, that’s not how it works. I stay, and everything else moves. And never that far.”

“It’s happened before. I touched your hand, and then the moment repeated itself, just a few seconds, but then, just now, you… I think, whether you meant to or not, I think you sent me back here. To two months ago.”

“Oh,” Teach says, relaxing. “I see what’s happening. You’re another dream.”

“Honestly, I wish I was,” Claude says.

“I’ve been having so many dreams,” they say. “I thought they were nothing, but now that you’re here too, maybe they are something.”

“About Edelgard? And Dimitri?” Claude says, remembering.

Teach nods, sadly, but then continues. “Dreams about both of them, and they’re not memories, but they are memories. Somehow. And then also, I… do you remember the Holy Mausoleum? In the monastery?”

“Of course,” Claude says. 

“In the dream, I go back there, on my own, and it’s dark. And I take a candle to light my way, and I see someone at the tomb, where we put her back. I see myself.”

“You see yourself walking through the mausoleum?”

They shake their head. “No, I walk through the mausoleum and the… the person at the tomb, it’s me. They look different, but I know it’s me. And I try to speak to them, I try to ask them why they’re there. I try to ask them anything. But they don’t say anything at all. And then I wake up.”

“Teach, I have to tell you. I don’t know what’s happening now - in the past, now - but as far as I’m concerned, in my now, you’re very, very sick, and we don’t know how to fix it.”

“Very sick?”

“_Very _ sick.”

“And your now is in Blue Sea moon.”

“Yes, and this isn’t a dream. You wrote us all letters to visit - me, Hilda, Lorenz, Ignatz, everyone in the Golden Deer, and we’re trying to help you, but we don’t- we don’t know what to do.”

Teach takes a long pause at this, and then says “I found out a while ago that there are things that can change and things that can’t. When Jeralt died, I…” They shake their head again. “If you’re here, and to you this is something that has already happened, then there’s a reason for that. And if all my friends are here trying to help me, in your now, then I know you will all work it out. So... I’m glad you’re here.”

Claude finally slumps into the chair Teach had proffered earlier, and runs his hands over his face. “That’s more faith than I deserve.”

“That’s not true at all,” they say firmly, shaking their head. “You know that. Or you should know. If you don’t, I haven’t told you enough lately.”

Claude still has his hands over his face but he hears the scrape of Teach’s chair moving back, then the creak of floorboards as they move around the desk. Finally, there’s a soft thump and the shift of weight against the leg of his chair. When he lifts a hand, Teach is knelt on the rug next to the chair, leaning in closely with a curious expression. 

“What?” Claude says. He’s suddenly reminded of sitting next to Teach in the dirt of the training ground, with a prickle of hairs at the back of his neck.

“I’m looking at you. It’s been a long time. It’s nice to see you.”

He can’t help but laugh, can’t help a little warmth rushing to his face. “That’s sweet of you, my friend, but probably not the priority right now.”

“You’ve got more of a beard.”

“Sure have.” Claude feels his throat close up as he says, “It’s nice to see you too, Teach. You look… you look well. Make sure you get lots of time outside in the next few months, ok? Don’t stay cooped up in this place.”

“If this really isn’t another dream,” Teach says thoughtfully, “You’ll have to prove it to me.”

“Send the letters, and we’ll come,” Claude says, but Teach shakes their head.

“No. Something from you.” They think. “If this isn’t a dream, them next time we speak… call me my name.”

“You don’t like Teach?” Claude asks, trying not to be hurt.

Teach pats the edge of the chair next to Claude’s thigh, a placating gesture. “It’s nice that you still call me it. But I’m not your teacher anymore.”

“Ok, fine. It feels weird, but I’ll try. Byleth.”

They smile again at that.

“Okay, this is nice and all, but what am I going to do? Do I have to stay here until time catches up with me? Because I don’t even want to think about the implications of that.”

Byleth gives this some thought. “If I sent you here, I must be able to send you back. I’ve just never thought of it like that before. What were we doing?”

“Uh, we were at the old chapel, and you were fainting, and I caught you.”

“Hm. I don’t feel like I’m going to faint. Here,” Byleth says, and stands up, before offering a hand to Claude. Claude cautiously takes it, but nothing happens, other than the strong pull of Byleth’s arm bringing him to his feet.

Once he’s standing Byleth takes a hold of Claude’s arms, manoeuvring him directly in front of them. Then they close their eyes, their brows knitting together slightly. 

It’s in that moment. More than when they opened the doors of Byleth’s room and found them surrounded by flowers. More than the hurricane that had almost knocked Claude off his feet. More than any other moment since he returned to Fódlan, it’s right now that Claude is sharply reminded that he is standing before someone with the power of a goddess, all theirs to wield.

Because they move their hands so their palms are flat against Claude’s chest. And then they mumble, “he moves, not me,” and then they take a deep breath, and then they _ shove- _

and Claude hits the ground with the weight of Byleth’s limp body on top of him.

“Claude!” Hilda shouts, just a moment behind him, and he feels her lift Byleth off of him, sliding them gently onto the ground beside Claude and resting their head and shoulders in her lap.

“Are you ok?” She asks, then puts a finger and thumb to her mouth to whistle loudly. Shortly after there’s the lumbering sound of two wyverns coming through the trees, honking as they approach. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m… I’m fine,” Claude says. “Let’s get them back, as quick as we can.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know about you guys but the bonus you get when you scan a fire emblem amiibo at the gazebo gave me an existential crisis on Byleth’s behalf, so I HAD to put it in here somewhere. I know it’s the Holy Tomb in that rather than the Mausoleum, but I had to change it for Plot Purposes.
> 
> As ever thank you for all the kind comments/kudos/bookmarks! It means the world to me.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some realisations, a not-quite-plan, and an interruption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this. I'm hoping I should have everything wrapped up in the last chapter and it won't be quite as long a wait for that one!

Claude and Hilda pick Byleth up, an arm slung around each of their necks, and carry them towards the wyverns. They are raging hot to the touch, damp with sweat. Their legs stumble forward as the three of them move but their head keeps drooping and swinging in arcs before briefly picking itself back upright. With a twisting feeling in his chest, Claude remembers the strength of Byleth’s grip just a few moments before as they’d pulled him from his chair.

“I can’t believe they would leave Garreg Mach when they’re this sick,” Hilda is saying, wrapped around Byleth’s left hand side. “I’m so mad at them! When they get better I’m going to give them such a talking to. They’re going to be so sorry.” Then she smears a hand quickly across her cheek, sniffing.

They put Byleth in front of Hilda on her wyvern, which grunts in complaint but readjusts its stance to accommodate the both of them. It’s as they strap Byleth into the saddle that Hilda taps Claude on the shoulder, gesturing around them.

“Hey, does this seem… different than before, to you?”

Claude looks around, and as he does a damp, organic smell reaches his nose. The trees they had followed towards the chapel seem… dark. Bare. As he watches, leaves and blossom petals spill from bowing branches. Suddenly there’s a creak, a sound of splitting, and both wyverns startle as a nearby tree falls to the ground.

“Okay, I can't deal with any more weird stuff right now. Let’s just… get out of here, get the Professor back to the monastery,” Hilda says, and Claude nods, pulling the last strap firm and patting the wyvern’s side before helping Hilda up.

It’s only a short flight, Hilda’s arms wrapped around Byleth as she holds the reins, and Claude can see her talking to Byleth as they fly, mouth moving with words whipped away by the wind. When Claude looks down, the decaying trees are a growing stain upon the ground.

Seteth is waiting pensively on the balcony, hands twisting the tassels on his jacket, and he unwinds like a spring when spots the two of them approaching, clutching at his chest when he sees Byleth slumped in front of Hilda on the wyvern.

“Where in the world- well, that is not important,” he says, once they’ve clattered to a landing on the stone. He unbuckles Byleth and hooks one arm behind their knees and the other around their back with a strength Claude probably shouldn’t be surprised about. When he swings around to carry Byleth inside, Hilda makes to go after him, but Claude catches her arm.

“Do you remember where Marianne was looking for Tea- for Byleth?”

“The fishing pond and the tunnels under the dining hall, I think.”

“Can you find her, and get Linhardt up here too? Please. And then I need to find Lysithea.”

Hilda nods and Claude calls “We’re getting help!” back to Seteth before they jump back on their wyverns to drop down to the ground floor. 

It’s as they swoop low towards the stables that Claude notices the crowd around the fishing pond - a gaggle of pilgrims, clergy and students crowded onto the pier and around the edges of the pond. He’s almost prepared to believe it’s another fishing tournament until he looks harder at where they’re leaning to look, into the surface of the water.

“Hilda, look,” he says, and points.

“What the… oh, that is  _ gross. _ ”

Claude remembers something like this in a lagoon outside Derdriu, not long after a trading boat had accidentally collided with another vessel and lost half its cargo into the water. The local fishermen had called it punishment from the goddess and had promptly built a little shrine to Saint Cethleann on the shore, in the hopes it would never happen again. Whatever it had been, it was as unpleasant now as it was then: hundreds of fish, turned on their side, floating lifelessly on the surface of the water.

  
  


\--

  
  


Lysithea looks so tired. They all do. Byleth’s back on the bed, exhausted; Claude can see their eyelids fluttering open briefly from time to time, but always falling shut again. Marianne is trying to bring down their temperature with a variation on a blizzard spell while Linhardt presses two fingers to their wrist and counts against his pocket watch. His brow furrows as he counts. Hilda is tidying the space around Marianne, tucking spell books away when Marianne sets them down. 

“It’s gotten so much worse, so quickly...” Marianne says to Linhardt.

“Sometimes these things do, as is my understanding." There's a gentleness to Linhardt's reply.

“You’re doing the best you can,” says Hilda. “And we’re here for whatever you need ok?”

“I know. Thank you, Hilda. Um,” says Marianne, and her voice drops almost too quiet for Claude to hear, if he hadn’t moved himself a little closer on purpose. “I’ve been thinking. I’ve seen something like this before. A long time ago.”

“Oh?” 

“A stable boy, in the household of my adoptive father. I only saw him a few times, but he…” Marianne, looks over her shoulder at the others in the room, then continues uncomfortably. “He injured himself on a nail in a fence, it went through his hand. The physician cleaned up it up as best he could but it stayed red and sore and hot, and then he got so sick…”

“An infection?”

“Yes. Um, I think. But the Professor isn’t injured, I don’t know why they would be sick like this if it’s just their Crest...”

“Hmm. Perhaps if we…” Linhardt falls silent as he jumbles through the piles of medicines Flayn has retrieved from the infirmary.

Claude drops back and then reaches out a hand to Lysithea’s shoulder where she’s staring pensively at the bed. When his fingers brush her skin she flinches in surprise.

“Sorry. Are you ok?” he whispers.

Lysithea shrugs. “I’ll manage.”

“Can I borrow you? We’re just in the way here, anyway.”

After another glance at Byleth she nods, wrapping her hand around his and letting him lead her out to the corridor.

“I wish there was more I could do,” she says to Claude, once they’re outside.

“You’re doing plenty.”

“It certainly doesn’t feel that way. Don’t you feel the same? We’ve been going around in circles for days, you know that. We’re missing something and I don’t know what it is. It’s so frustrating!” She sighs, and her shoulders slump. “Claude, are they going to... be ok?”

“What are you guys doing out here?” They both jump this time. It’s Hilda, her makeup still a little smudged under one eye. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just kind of intense in there, you know?”

“We know,” Claude says, reaching out to run a hand up and down her forearm. She steps forward into space his arm offers and leans against him, his arm around her back. Claude feels his jaw relax, a tension he didn’t even realise he’d been holding giving way just a little.

“How are you holding up?”

Hilda shrugs, just like Lysithea, her weight shifting against Claude’s side. “I’m just worried about Marianne. I tried to bring her up some sweet buns from the dining hall earlier and by the time I got back up the stairs to the Professor’s room they were mouldy, ughh. I don’t know what weird variety of the Professor’s powers this one is, but I hate it.”

“I can’t believe I'm having to say this to you of all people, but make sure you take care of yourself, too.” Claude shifts, clears his throat. Now or never. “Speaking of powers, I need to tell you both about something. Something that happened when we found Byleth.”

“What happened?” asks Lysithea.

Claude tells them.

Hilda pulls away from his side to face him, staring. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth.”

“If that were true,” Hilda says slowly, and Claude can hear the rising horror in her voice, “About the letters, that would mean… Claude, wouldn’t that would mean the only reason we’re here at all is because you told the Professor to tell us to come here? That’s  _ impossible _ .” 

“Hilda, I feel like we have all seen enough impossible things in our time that you saying that doesn’t even mean anything anymore.”

“If the Professor can alter the course of time,” Lysithea says, “What could they have already changed? What paths have they sent us down? The implications- I-“ She steps away from Claude to make a small circle down the corridor and back, but when she has returned, she says “Okay. Okay. I believe you. I have a  _ lot _ of questions for the Professor when this is over, though.”

“I don’t blame you. I just keep thinking that if Byleth can just… shove me back into the present, there has to be more they can do, that they might not even know about. How can we even truly measure the power of a Goddess? It broke half of Hanneman’s machines when we tried. We’re playing cards when we don’t know what most of the deck looks like.”

“It kind of explains all the weird stuff that’s been happening today, if you think about it,” Hilda says. “All the trees near the chapel dying, and the fish, and the food I brought Marianne.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well all the stuff that’s happened so far that I knew about was all, like, life and naturey stuff. The plants and the people having lots of babies and the weird weather. But this stuff, maybe it’s a time thing. Like the food going mouldy so quickly.”

“It could be both," Claude says slowly.

“Hang on,” Lysithea says. “You said… they dreamt of themself? At the Holy Mausoleum?”

Claude nods, and Lysithea starts pacing again, pressing her palms together under her chin.

“Do you recall what Cornelia said when we cornered her at the fort? She said the only one who could end the Professor was themself. And now the Professor is talking about it too. Or did, two months ago, I suppose. Themself, but different.” 

“I was thinking about that, the other day, too. Byleth is already more than one self, really. Both the Goddess and themself.”

Lysithea stops, and looks up at them, eyes wide. “Wait. We already know what’s in the Holy Mausoleum.”

Hilda gasps at the same time as Claude realises the answer himself. “The Sword of the Creator! They put it back a while ago, before the Professor started getting sick.”

Lysithea tugs at her hair frantically. “If the Crest stone is the power of the Goddess and the Professor is the vessel-”

“Then the Sword is a conduit for that power,” Claude says, suddenly breathless. “Lysithea, you’re absolutely right. All the Relics are, they’re made of the bones and hearts of the same creatures, they’re literally the same body.”

“Perhaps we have been thinking about this wrong wrong the whole time,” Lysithea continues. “Rather than removing the source of the power, we just need a safer way for it to be used. Instead it just spilling out of the Professor the way it is right now, I mean. Perhaps... if we can reunite the Professor with the Sword of the Creator it will provide them with a, a channel, or some other method…”

“It’s a long shot,” Claude admits.

“It’s no longer than any of the others,” Lysithea counters, which is fair enough.

“But how do we do this?” Hilda says. “The Sword will be sealed away with like,  _ so _ much magic. More than last time, I bet, after that mage broke the seal all on his own last time. And it’s not like we can just carry it up the stairs to the Professor anyway. Can you imagine?”

“I think we should take the Professor there, if that’s what they’ve dreamed about,” Lysithea says. “We shouldn’t delay any longer than we need to. Perhaps just after sunset, when the pilgrims are leaving for the day and the clergy are praying. Everyone will have their minds on other things.”

“You guys, this almost feels like a plan,” Hilda says.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far, in my expert opinion. But it’s better than no plan at all.” Claude grins at them, and then that grin splits into a yawn he can’t stop.

“You need to get some rest, too,” Lysithea says. “Try to sleep at some point, will you?”

“Yeah, there’s no use you falling over while we carry the Professor,” adds Hilda.

“Fine, fine. Soon.” There’s too much whirring around Claude’s head for him to think about resting. He wants to go back to Cornelia’s books now they have a theory to work with, wants to talk to Hanneman and Linhardt, wants to keep an eye on Byleth until everything is ready. “Honestly, Lysithea, I’m just impressed you’re the one who suggested going to the Holy Mausoleum after sunset.”

“You truly never will stop treating me like a child, will you?” Lysithea says, exasperated, then combs her fingers through the ends of her hair. “Besides. It’s not like I’ll be there alone.”

  
  


\--

  
  


The air is so still inside the Holy Mausoleum. There is nothing to nudge at the countless tiny flames of candles, nothing to shift the air that smells of endless sleep. The space is neat, if a little dusty. The floor betrays tracks of footsteps past; some with honourable intentions, some without. 

Raphael has Byleth in his arms, flanked by Claude and Hilda; Marianne clasps her hands together in brief prayer as the rest of them follow, walking together in an awkward procession towards the tomb. If the sound wouldn’t cut through the motionless air far too loudly, Claude would laugh at the picture they all make.

Once they reach the tomb, Lysithea and Linhardt run their hands over the cold, dusty stone and a dense layer of sigils come to life under their hands, overlapping and shifting under the eye. 

“There is a lot of magic keeping this closed,” Lysithea says. “We can work our way through, but it will take some time.”

“It was designed that way,” says Seteth. “There is no swift way to go about it, just a case of dismantling each protective spell one by one. I will give guidance as best I can, but there is no quick solution.”

“I can assist you also,” says Flayn, stepping up to the dais alongside Lysithea and Linhardt. “A methodical approach to undoing each sigil seems prudent, but it may be we can divide them amongst ourselves for expediency. Perhaps by type.”

“The rest of us can keep watch,” Hilda says, to a ripple of agreement from the group.

“Okay,” says Claude, nodding thanks. He turns back to the three at the tomb. “How long do you think you need?”

They look at each other, and then back to Claude.

“Perhaps thirty minutes?” Linhardt suggests.

“Twenty,” Lysithea says, firmly.

“Twenty it is.”

Claude nods. “Okay. We’ll let you get on with it.”

Raphael sits Byleth down at the front of the tomb, their back propped against the stone, and Marianne smooths down their rumpled hair with a pale hand. She reaches for a tome and whispers under her breath, a pale glow of white magic flickering in front of her. Byleth’s eyelids flutter open, but somehow in the dim light of the mausoleum candles Claude can barely recognise them. It’s as if that glow, that compulsion to look at them Claude had first felt in the cathedral, is everything they are, leaving the rest of them hollowed out. Their breath is shallow and rasping and Claude can see sweat start to bead on their brow again.

“Byleth,” Claude says, and tired green eyes turn his way.

“Byl…? Claude,” they say, with difficulty. “You found us.” They cough into their hand.

“I did, but now we need you again. Do you know where we are?”

Their head swivels around. “Yes,” they say, and then, “I think,” and then, “No.”

“I need you to focus, the way we did the other day, okay? We’re in the Holy Mausoleum. Everyone’s here trying to help you.”

“Claude,” they mumble, still looking around. “I don’t feel well.” 

“I know, I know. But just stay with me, okay?” Claude says, with a calmness he doesn’t feel, and puts a gentle hand to Byleth’s jaw to bring their gaze back to meet his own.

“Hey, remember our little field trip to Sreng together? And how you kept having to tip sand out of your boots every couple of feet? I still remember you fighting that one bandit with only one boot on when he got the jump on you.”

Byleth makes a little noise, then says, “Macuil.”

“That’s right.”

Byleth takes a breath, and everyone starts as the tiny candles around them suddenly flare, but they settle as Byleth breathes out, long and wheezy with a rattle of a cough at the end. They hold their hands out to Claude, who takes them both and helps them to their feet slowly.

“Okay. We’re here. What do you need us to do?” Byleth asks, but then everyone’s head jerks as there’s a noise at the entrance. It’s Catherine, pushing the heavy door open. She has Thunderbrand in her hand.

“Seteth? Archbishop? Are you here?”

“Catherine?” Seteth calls. “Is something the matter?”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t urgent. A gang has taken a group of pilgrims hostage in the marketplace just as they were leaving for the day. They must have infiltrated the crowds one by one over the course of the day, it’s the only way I can think they didn’t attract the guards’ attention. They say they’re going to kill the pilgrims one by one if they don’t get what they want.”

“What is it that they’re asking for?”

“Everything that was taken in Faerghus. And… for the Archbishop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever thanks to my friends and my husband for their encouragement. <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ending, then a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for some asphyxiation, violence and blood in this chapter - nothing probably worse than in a Fire Emblem game, but ymmv.

Everyone in the Mausoleum bristles, and Claude finds himself reaching for Parthia and stepping in front of Byleth.

“They’re not leaving this room,” Hilda says firmly, and Raphael and Lorenz move to stand shoulder to shoulder with her.

“Of course they aren’t,” says Catherine. “This is the safest place they could be other than the vaults themselves. But some of you need to stay with the Archbishop, and the rest need to come with me.”

“What can you tell us?” Seteth asks.

“There’s twelve of them, with seven pilgrims. Blades to their necks. They’ve blockaded themselves in front of the market exit so nobody can come in or out, I guess so they can make a quick getaway. We’ve evacuated anyone we can through the other gates, Shamir’s out there with her retinue, and there’s snipers trained on them from the second floor.”

“It sounds like you have them pretty well covered. Is Cornelia there?” Claude asks. “If they’re after what was in the fort…”

“I haven’t seen her, but she must have something to do with it.” Catherine pulls a face. “Honestly, the whole thing seems pretty desperate to me. They surely can’t imagine they can get out of this with their lives, let alone with their demands. Maybe they’re being coerced, maybe they’re just stupid. Or it could be a distraction, so I want to keep the monastery covered.”

“Desperate people can be dangerous too,” says Claude. “There's a few who need to stay here. I can-” he hesitates, and looks back at Byleth. They're still standing, but they’re resting one hand on the stone of the casket now to keep themself steady.

“Claude, we’ll go,” Ignatz says. “You should stay with the Professor.”

“He’s right,” says Hilda. Beside her, Raphael and Lorenz are already shifting into stances that became instinct during the war, their weapons not yet drawn but their shoulders squaring and their feet moving apart. Claude nods.

“Okay. Catherine, where do you need us?”

Catherine jerks her head back towards the door. “Everyone who can give up their post here, with me. The rest, stay put until I give word, and keep the Archbishop safe.”

“What will you do if they keep demanding we hand over the Archbishop?” Seteth asks. 

Catherine just shakes her head. “We’ll never hand them over,” she says, simply. 

Most of the Deer save Claude and Lysithea follow Catherine out, and with the sudden exodus the Mausoleum feels much larger and colder than it had five minutes ago. He shivers, and then turns to Byleth, still braced with one hand on the casket, looking pale.

“How are you holding up?”

Byleth doesn’t reply, just reaches out a hand to Claude. Without thinking, he pulls them into his side and their head rolls against his shoulder, warm and damp. They’re so warm, but they shiver when they lean against Claude, the sudden weight making him brace one foot backwards to balance.

“Tired,” they mumble.

“Me too. Just hang in there a bit longer,” Claude says, and because he can, rocks his head against the top of Byleth’s. They smell of sweat and dirty hair, too much time in a sickbed, and a little of the rotting trees from back near the chapel. It’s not particularly pleasant and the sheer heat coming from their body is making Claude uncomfortably warm, but he doesn’t think of pulling away.

For a while, that’s all there is in the still air of the Mausoleum, just the sound of Byleth’s laboured breathing against Claude’s shoulder and the whispers of spells around the tomb. Sigils flare and fade under the mages’ fingers. At one point Linhardt hisses as sparks lick his fingers from an awkwardly dismantled spell. A short while later Lysithea swears loudly as a sigil snaps back into place under her hands with a  _ crack _ , then blushes when Seteth mutters something about this being a holy place. Claude can see that all their brows are beading with exertion and doesn’t begrudge Lysithea the blasphemy.

All the while Claude wonders what is happening back in the marketplace. It seems a hundred years ago since he’d spoken to Shamir back at the basement vault, but he remembers how he’d felt like she was keeping something from him. Whatever it is, Catherine is right to call it desperate. Ambushing a group of knights in the middle of the Faerghus wastelands is one thing, a stand-off in the very heart of Fódlan government is quite another.

But then finally, there’s the sound of shifting stone, and Lysithea, Linhardt and Flayn make simultaneous noises of relief as the lid of the casket can now be slid away. Claude lifts his head from Byleth’s, twisting to look, which makes Byleth jerk out of whatever half-doze they were in and pull away.

“Oh, thank the goddess. Quickly now,” Seteth says, urgently, and Linhardt’s the first one to reach in, a small grunt escaping his mouth as he lifts the casket’s contents. 

The Sword of the Creator lies within, as unpleasant and deadly as it has always been, bone and sinew and joint settled into joint. Made of death, to deliver more death. Linhardt murmurs at the weight of it, and only protests with a slight skew of his mouth when Claude takes it from him. It’s leaden and awkward in his grip; it feels like trying to swing it would pull his arms from his shoulders. Claude wraps another hand around the hilt, lifts it vertically with a grunt and holds it out to Byleth.

They reach out for it, but make a noise of surprise when Claude lets go, their arms sagging with the sudden weight. The blade scrapes awkwardly on the stone between them with an ugly noise. 

“Byleth, you need to try...” Claude says, guiding Byleth’s hand to grip the hilt again. With a grunt of effort, they lift it again. There’s another little flicker of light, but then it fades. Dies. 

“We can’t,” they say, dully, the Sword rolling loosely in their grip.

“One more try.”

They make to lift the Sword again, and this time there’s not even a flicker. When they lower it, they cough raggedly into their arm.

“Please,” Claude says, and he can hear the desperation in his voice now.

Byleth lifts the sword one more time with another cry of effort, both hands wrapped around the hilt. And then, it happens. The Sword of the Creator bursts to life with its sickly red glow, and Byleth gasps, wrenched suddenly upright, spine arched, their eyes wide. Claude stumbles backward as every candle in the mausoleum suddenly snuffs out. But then the dark doesn’t matter anymore, because Byleth is  _ incandescent _ . 

From the ends of their hair to the tips of their toes they radiate light. It crackles along their skin in green sparks, pulling them upwards until their feet no longer touch the floor. They are alive. More than that, they are life, they are the chemical reactions that make the stars burn and turn a body from flesh into a human being. Claude wants to shield his eyes, but he’s not sure it would even help. It’s like the light burns through them all.

And then Byleth settles. Their feet braced on the stone, their back straight, the Sword of the Creator still burning in one hand. The light fades from their body until the memory of it even having been there at all seems like a fantasy.

“Oh,” they say, hesitantly, looking down at themself. They hold their free hand up to their mouth and nose, and then pull it away. Then, they take slow, light steps in a circle, pivoting around the Sword. Dancer’s steps.

“Byleth?” Claude says, hesitant.

They look up at Claude, and it’s like meeting eyes with a stranger. Colour flushes their cheeks, their eyes are bright, the dark smudges under their eyes wiped away. It’s…. miraculous.

“Are you— are you ok?”

“Um,” they say, followed by a full body shiver that Claude can see even from here. And then: “Ah. Yes, we think so, now. It’s very dark in here, isn’t it?”

They click their fingers, and all the candles in the mausoleum reignite at once. 

“Much better,” they say. With more than the light of the Sword to go by, Claude can see the rest of the group. Behind the tomb, Linhardt and Lysithea gape, and Flayn has her hands clamped over her mouth. Seteth and Hanneman are stock still, watching apprehensively. 

At the silence, Byleth frowns. “Look at you all, gawping like fish! Don’t you all know it’s rude to stare? And not even a thank you for lighting the room, either.”

Anxiety suddenly clangs in Claude’s chest like a wayward bell. 

“Archbishop, if you would allow us to examine you…" Hanneman says, hesitantly.

“No,” Byleth says calmly, instantly. “Don’t worry, though. That’s all over and done with, we’re feeling quite well now. But there was something left, wasn’t there? Something elsewhere. We can’t quite remember.”

“Byleth,” says Linhardt, and there’s an undercurrent of apprehension in his voice. 

Byleth’s head snaps Linhardt’s way at the sound of his voice, and then they rock their heels upwards in a little bounce of their feet. “Oh! Our friends are still in danger. And the pilgrims, too. What are we waiting for?”

“Archbishop, we must stay—” Seteth exclaims, but there’s the purple light of a warp spell, and they’re gone.

In the sudden, anxious silence, Linhardt says “I don't think this has had quite the result we were expecting."

“This isn’t right,” Claude says, still trying to calm the hammer of his heart in his chest. “I don’t know what’s happened, but we need to—”

Claude hasn’t even finished his sentence before Byleth warps back in.

“We forgot the rest of you! How remiss of us,” they say. “We must do better.”

Claude has never been the biggest fan of being warped by someone else. It’s the feeling of suspension, like a hook in the belly, and the brief moment of being completely at someone else’s mercy before you’re dropped unceremoniously at your destination. It’s no less unpleasant now, especially without warning. When his feet hit cobbles he stumbles and blinks against the bright torch light of the marketplace. It’s only a moment before Lysithea and Flayn are beside him, and Linhardt follows close behind.

Shamir swings around, bow drawn, and then her face twists in utter confusion when she sees Claude. 

“What are you doing here?! You were supposed to—” but her words are cut short when Byleth steps forward confidently, back straight, the Sword still burning in their hand.

“We will take care of this,” they say confidently. “Stand aside.”

“Archbishop?” Shamir sounds utterly confused, but at the sight of the Sword in Byleth’s hand her bow wavers, moves to point to the ground.

“Byleth, don’t.” Claude reaches out a hand to catch their arm, and to his surprise he can still feel burning heat through their jacket. At his touch, though, Byleth yanks their arm away, mouth curling in irritation.

“Do you take us for a fool? Some naive child? Have we not stood side by side in battle countless times?”

“Of course, but—”

“You of all people should know we can fix this, Claude von Riegan,” they say, and the rest of Shamir’s soldiers part like a wave, bowing in front of Byleth as they stride through.

The bandits are in a loose circle between their two barricades, some with their blades to the necks of white-robed, terrified pilgrims who strain themselves away from the steel. There’s a ripple of consternation through the group, though, when Byleth steps into view.

“Is that the Archbishop?”

“They were supposed to be sick, that’s what she told us—”

“They’re got their Relic!”

“Fools, playing pretend at battle, it seems,” Byleth says, conversationally. “What sort of coward sends their underlings into such a half-witted errand? Where are you, Lady Cornelia?"

One of the mages grips one hand on a tome and holds her other hand out towards Byleth.

"Drop your weapon! If you're here to exchange, drop your weapon and keep your hands where we can see them—” 

And then the mage stops talking. And Claude's ears pop, like when he takes a wyvern up too high, too quickly. 

"Coming into our home, threatening our worshippers, endangering our friends?" Byleth spits. "For the sake of your bloodthirsty weapons, your murderous spells, your arcane machinery? Your so-called leader was part of those who sealed us away in the darkness, once. Have you ever felt what nothing is like? Because you are all  _ nothing _ , and nothings deserve nothing.”

Another bandit suddenly bends double, and then another. And then two pilgrims drop to the floor as well, and Claude makes to run their way, but when he steps forward he tries to take a breath and it doesn't feel like it fills his lungs enough. When he tries again it still isn't enough.

Then he sees Lysithea faint.

And Flayn and Shamir bring hands to their throats, eyes wide, and then Claude realises vaguely through his increasing light-headedness that everyone is running out of air. 

"Byleth," he croaks, and Byleth glances over their shoulder, and then stumbles around to face him, eyes wide. And though his vision is dimming he swears he can hear Byleth scream.

Claude is on his hands and knees by the time he can catch a breath again, the air rushing back like that first gasp after a deep water dive. His head swims, his chest heaves like he’s sprinted for days. When he can focus, Byleth is the only one standing, and the Sword of the Creator has fallen to the ground by their side.

"Hey," Claude tries to say, and it takes two attempts because the first one comes out as a wheeze.

“Claude,” they say, running to him, and with the white glow of a recovery spell he's back on his feet, cold tingles running to the ends of his fingers and toes.

"I'm so sorry," they say. "We forgot, we forgot how people worked, Sothis, she… did I hurt you?” Without the Sword in their hand, they're already paler, duller, more tired. But they don't terrify Claude the way they had in the Mausoleum. 

"No, I’m, I’m ok." Claude's throat feels dry, and he's still a little lightheaded, but the spell has done the job. He looks around him. Everybody else is so still, but surely… "Is everyone…" 

"I've stopped time for us," Byleth says. "They're all alive. I'm so sorry. It was so hard to think." 

"That wasn't you, was it,” Claude says. “Just now.”

"It was, and it wasn't. But, I can’t... it’s still my fault.” They look down at the Sword. “I’ve been so useless, for so long now, I wanted… I wanted to fix everything, but I didn't want this. Never. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. You stopped it,” Claude says faintly, and it’s then that they fall into each other, Byleth’s hand twisting in the back of Claude’s jacket and their nose pressed into his neck. Byleth is shaking, Claude realises. His hands hesitantly wrap around their shoulders, then tighten.

“I think I know, now,” Byleth says into his shoulder. “How to end it. But I can’t do it alone.”

“How?”

“I can't use the Sword again. But you… I need you to forgive me, and to trust me, if you can," Byleth says, pulling away. “Can you pick it up?”

It’s still an awkward, ugly weight but he drags it up with both hands on the hilt, the point still resting on the ground. Byleth places themself in front of Claude, and he’s reminded of when they’d pulled him to his feet in their office, to push them back through time. They’d looked so sure of themself back then. Now, they look terrified.

“Do you trust me?” they say. 

"Yes, of course," Claude says, and he means it, every word, and yet he's still surprised when Byleth steps forward, wraps a palm around the back of his neck and pushes their mouth to his. 

Claude tastes blood. 

Byleth’s mouth is burning hot. And that heat rushes through him like a wave from his mouth to his neck through his body to his toes and fingers, fire, thunder, earthquake.

He sees: a vast ancient battlefield. A weeping woman. Slaughter and sacrilege. And then a dark green stone room, with a throne, with a girl sat in it, with red and white ribbons in her hair.

And then the Sword of the Creator flares to life in his hands with a sickly red glow. 

Claude pulls back to look at Byleth, eyes wide, and Byleth just nods. Their hand still loosely cups his neck.

_ The only one that can bring about their end is themself. They’ll swallow themself whole. _

"What I’ve given you won't last long,” they say. 

"There has to be—”

"There isn't," they insist. "Do it  _ now _ ." 

And Claude raises the Sword of the Creator, suddenly light as a toy in his hand, and plunges it into Byleth, between the third and fourth rib on the left hand side.

Byleth gasps in agony, as if all the air has been pushed out of them at once, their back arching, and suddenly it feels to Claude as though the ground has disappeared from beneath him and he is hurtling downwards through darkness. The sight of the sword still glowing in his hand and plunged into Byleth is horrifying and impossible to understand. And impossible to deny.

Byleth’s knees buckle, and the sudden weight is too much for Claude; they sink to the ground together, still joined by the blade. He pulls it free with another horrible gasp from Byleth, and as he does the orange-red glow leaves the sword, though he still has a hand around the hilt. And then he feels it shift under his hand, slacken. He lets go and it clatters to the floor. Vertebra by horrible vertebra the rest of the sword falls apart, some still red with Byleth’s blood. And then the Sword of the Creator is nothing but fragments of bone. Destroyed. Powerless. Lifeless. 

And Byleth falls backwards to the ground, and suddenly there is chaos around Claude, the sounds of gasping and coughing and then, cries of horror.

“Byleth,” Claude gasps, agonized, and reaches for them, no, no, this isn’t the end, no. “Marianne! Marianne! Linhardt! Someone, here, please!”

Blood is soaking Byleth’s clothes; Claude takes off his jacket and bundles it, pushing it against the wound. A wash of cold passes his arms, and there’s Manuela Casagranda, the last traces of the heal sigil still fading from in front of her.

“Manuela,” he says, helplessly, and she kneels beside him, pushing his hands and his coat away gently, pulling Byleth’s shirt open. Claude looks at the blood on his coat. He looks at the blood on his hands. 

“We need to work quickly,” she says, and sigils flicker in front of her quicker than Claude can see them.

“You got here,” Claude says, and then, “how did you get here?”

“Of course I got here. I would have been here sooner if you hadn’t made me ride on the back of Leonie's damn pegasus so I felt like I was going to be sick.” 

“Are they going to be okay?”

Manuela doesn’t reply; she’s now pulling dressings out of a pack by her side. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but Byleth doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t react to Manuela’s administrations. Doesn’t move at all.

“Manuela?”

“Shut up and let me work,” she says. “I thought I was here for a bad case of the ‘flu, not for a stab wound from a Relic.” 

Claude’s shaking, he realises. His hands tremble like leaves in the wind. He settles back on his heels; his legs can barely support him. He can’t move, can hardly focus on Manuela’s ministrations beside him.

“Keep them warm,” she barks, but before he can react, a body settles down beside Claude, with the flame of a fire spell in her palm. It’s Marianne. Then another drops down on his other side, and Hilda wraps her arms around Claude. He feels the pressure of her arms, and, abstractly, the warmth of her body, but it is happening to someone else, someone a few feet away who shares his face. 

Lysithea brings another flame, Leonie supporting her at one side, and distantly he can hear Raphael and Lorenz ushering people away. Ignatz kneels next to Manuela and hands her items when she asks. It is five minutes. It is a century. All the while, Byleth is silent on the ground.

And then Manuela hitches a breath. “Look,” she says, and Claude can barely bring himself to look, and it takes longer than it should for him to focus, but.

Byleth’s hair is darker. It is, Claude remembers, the same colour from all those years ago, before they had escaped from the darkness. When they’d first met in Remire. 

“It’s like it just… drained away,” Marianne says. 

“Do you think-” 

“Let me…” Manuela says, and another sigil flares in front of her, and a jolt goes through Byleth’s body. And then another. Manuela reaches for Byleth’s wrist, presses two fingers against it.

“They’re alive,” she says, relief rushing out of her at the same time as the words, and Claude can’t hold back the sob that wracks him.

They’re alive.

—

Byleth sleeps. They sleep through the arrest of the bandits, through being carried back to their room, back in Raphael’s arms again. Through Manuela’s injections, dressing changes, spells. Through the comings and goings of their friends, who squeeze their hand or brush their hair away from their face with careful hands.

Claude sleeps too, eventually, though he tries to fight it, pushed into his room by Hilda and Marianne who then disappear into Hilda’s room together. Thoughts whirl around his head, too many to sift apart, but when he hits the pillow, they’re gone.

He wakes up to to bright afternoon sunshine, and his eyes feel gritty and sore, his throat dry. There’s a thrumming through his body that matches his heartbeat, the unpleasant drumbeat of dehydration. When he goes to his desk for the pitcher and cup, he notices two letters from Almyra and a soup bowl full of dead, curled petals.

Seteth and Flayn are stood outside of Byleth’s room when he approaches, but they just nod when he makes to slip past them. Inside, Manuela is stood by the bed, checking a thermometer.

“You sure did a number on them,” Manuela says, when she notices Claude.

“They asked me to,” Claude says. “But maybe next time I’ll say no.”

“That might be for the best,” she agrees. “Well, whatever the plan was, it seems it worked.”

“You’re sure?”

She puts the thermometer down and tucks the sheets around Byleth a little. “Well, first of all, they have a heartbeat now, so that’s handy. On top of that, their blood pressure is back to normal, and so is their temperature, almost. Leonie told me all about the strange magical side effects they were having, and there’s been nothing like that happening, either. Their dressings need regularly checking, and still need to rest, a  _ lot _ , but… they’re getting there.”

Claude looks down at Byleth, who is curled up on their side, hands cradled near their face. “Good,” he says, and then “good,” again, because he doesn’t know what else to say that won’t reveal something he doesn’t want to show yet.

“Now, leave me alone,” says Manuela. “I’ve already had to chase half the monastery out of here since this morning, though I suppose those two at the door let you through so you wouldn’t just try to sneak in another way.”

“Thank you for coming all this way with Leonie, Manuela.”

“Just like old times, eh? I even got to have an argument with Hanneman. Okay, really now, go away, let them sleep. Get washed up, you look worse than I used to after two bottles of Gloucester red.”

“Gee, thanks,” Claude says, but doesn’t argue.

“You’ll see them again, soon, I’m sure,” says Manuela, kindly.

By the time he makes it to the dining hall service for lunch is almost over but Leonie waves him over to where she and the rest of the third floor residents are sitting. When Claude’s settled she pushes a bowl of Daphnel stew his way with a plate over the top. 

“Didn’t want you to miss out.”

When the smell of the stew escapes the plate, Claude’s stomach suddenly twists with hunger he hadn’t realised he’d been feeling. He nods gratefully at Leonie and then begins to inhale the entire thing.

“Have you been to see them?” Lorenz asks. Claude nods, and Lorenz patiently waits until he swallows his mouthful.

“They’re still asleep. Manuela told me to go away.”

“She said that to us, too,” says Raphael. “But I haven’t seen any weird weather, or plants, or birds, or anything like that. Do you think it’s really over?”

“I don’t know, but it seems that way.” Claude says honestly. He looks up at everyone, and fondness spikes him right in the chest. “Look, everyone, I’m not gonna make a speech or anything, because I’m not your house leader anymore, or your commander, and also I’m too hungry. But. Thank you.”

“Oh shush, Claude, you were totally our commander again,” says Hilda. “But you’re welcome."

“No,” he protests. “This was a meeting of equals. A collaboration of the willing.”

“This has been a strange few weeks,” says Ignatz. “But I’m so glad the Archbishop is doing better. And whatever we are, it’s been lovely to spend time with you all again, and back in the monastery. Seteth has even asked me about working on some paintings for the cardinals’ room.”

“It certainly has been a pleasure to work alongside you all once again,” Lorenz says. “Though I hope the next time will be under less eventful circumstances.”

“Aw, you guys,” Leonie says fondly. 

“Mm, lovely, yes. Hey Claude, since you don’t seem too traumatised,” Linhardt says, leaning across the table, “How did it feel to destroy a Crest stone with its own Relic? Did it affect you? Have you experienced any ill effects yourself? Would you be willing to undergo some tests so we can compare your results to Byleth’s? Did your own Crest undergo any stress?”

“Linhardt,” Lysithea says, warningly.

“Fine, fine. We’ll let you eat first. But you  _ do _ realise you’re going to have to tell us everything. This is a whole new branch of research. The use of a Relic for Crest power manipulation, rather than the other way around! Fascinating.” He doesn’t look at Lysithea when he lightly adds, “It certainly gives us another avenue to explore when it comes to the concept of Crest removal.”

Lysithea’s face changes entirely, shifting through shock and hope and then to something resembling neutrality. 

“Hey, I just had an idea! We should make the Professor a get-well present,” says Hilda, swiftly. “Something cute to go in their hair, maybe. Ooh, or like a bracelet!”

“That sounds nice,” says Marianne. “You’re always so thoughtful, Hilda.” She shyly lifts a hand to Hilda’s cheek, turning her head towards Marianne’s own, and kisses her softly, chastely on the lips with a smile.

“I’m sure we can make something beautiful if we all work together,” she says, after they part.

\--

The next morning, just as he finishes his meditation, there’s a knock on Claude’s door.

“Are you decent? I’m coming in.” It’s Manuela.

“Sure,” he says, pushing himself up from the floor. It’s been too long since he’s had the chance to be up before dawn, spend some time with himself. It’s been nice. Manuela slides in, a cup of tea in one hand.

“They’re awake, and they’re asking for you,” she says, and as he immediately starts to leave the room, braces her free hand on his chest. 

“They are awake, and up and about. But they are still  _ recovering _ , and they need  _ rest _ . They’re not half Goddess anymore. Which is something they keep forgetting. So… be gentle.”

“I will,” Claude promises, but still makes it across the corridor in record time.

Byleth is waiting on the third floor balcony, leaning with their arms against the wall. The air is still a little cool, with a light breeze, the last pink streaks of the sunrise fading to blue in a clear sky. Byleth is in a loose white linen shirt and similar trousers, their feet bare against the balcony tiles, and they turn when they hear Claude’s steps. 

“Claude. Happy birthday.” They gesture beside them, and there’s a small wrapped gift balanced on the balcony wall, flat and rectangular.

“You didn’t need to get me a gift,” Claude says, settling beside Byleth and picking the package up. It lightly rattles as he tips it from side to side.

“I didn’t,” they say. “Well, I did. But a few months ago. Just in case.” Byleth gestures. “You don’t need to open it right now. It’s just a board game, from Dagda.”

“Well now you spoiled the surprise. But thank you anyway.” He sets it aside, for now, and the two of them look out over the balcony together. 

It’s hard to know where to start.

“So,” Claude says eventually. “How are you finding the new look? The new, old, look, I guess.”

Byleth thinks hard about this. “It hurts,” they say. 

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s…” they wave a hand. “It’s a good hurt. In a way. Air in my lungs. Being hungry. My heart beating. I didn’t notice those things before, not like this. That’s a good difference.”

“I think I understand,” Claude says. “Being alive hurts, I guess, in its way.”

“Yes. I don’t think you can really know what it’s like if you don’t know how it feels.”

There’s another silence between them. Claude wants to ask more questions, desperately. But there’s something about the way they speak that suggests a finality, a closing of a book, however much there might be left unanswered.

“I got a few letters from the Almyran court,” Claude says, eventually, because it’s weighing on his mind. “The state address is coming up next month.”

“Oh?” says Byleth, their mouth dropping at the corners.

“And I was wanting to drop in on Judith on my way back. See how, uh, House Daphnel is doing. So I probably can’t stay until the Rite of Rebirth, though I would have liked to. Though maybe you might wanna skip it this year anyway, rest up?”

“Oh,” they say. “The Rite. Yes.” Another pause, and then: “Claude, can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t think I want to be Archbishop anymore,” they say in a rush, their knuckles tightening on the wall of the balcony. “I’m sorry. I know this is what we worked for, together, but…” they falter, their head dropping to focus on their own hands. “...I’m just a person. A person that things happened to, and I don’t think that counts as being a good leader.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what Fódlan needs,” Claude says. “Someone who’s just a person. No gods or giant beasts.”

“If they do, then they should decide that, not me,” Byleth says. “It wasn’t just me who defeated the Empire, or unified Fódlan. It was everyone. We all worked together. Maybe people should work together to take care of Fódlan, too.”

Claude tries to keep his face neutral, for now, though just hearing the thought aloud from Byleth is like beholding the fruit of seeds he’d tried to plant, blindfold, years ago. “That’s a pretty ambitious thought,” he says.

“Yes,” they agree. 

That’s probably a discussion for another time, Claude thinks. “What would you do? If you weren’t Archbishop anymore?”

Byleth shrugs, then looks up again, out over the monastery. In the distance the Oghma mountains still have snow at their very highest peaks, which reflects the sun like gold. “Jeralt and I used to travel all over, I think. That might be nice.”

“You want to be a mercenary again?”

They think about that. “Probably not. All I’ve ever known how to do is fight. And to teach other people how to fight, I suppose. But maybe I don’t want to do any more fighting. I think I just want to walk around. Not just Fódlan, other places too. Do people do that? Just walk around?”

“Sure.”

Byleth looks pleased. “I’d like that, I think. I just want to be back under an open sky.”

“Somewhere you can hear everything,” Claude says, and there’s a lump in his throat when they nod.

“You know,” Claude adds, after a short moment of quiet, “you need to give yourself more credit. You’re not just a person that ‘things happened to’. Everything that’s happened, you’ve had to deal with it, act upon it. You had the powers of a goddess forced upon you and all you wanted was to protect your friends. There aren’t many people who would come out of everything that’s happened to you, so… so…” Claude searches for the words. “So open. So honest. So willing to trust that others will be there to catch you when you fall. It took me a long time to ever feel that way about other people. I still find it hard.”

Byleth shakes their head. “You were there when I woke up, when I went to Garreg Mach. You were the first one there, too. You didn’t even know if anyone else was going to show up. You brought me a snack.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. It was nice.”

Claude snorts a laugh, and Byleth grins, which is utterly unfamiliar on their face, but it makes something flutter under Claude’s sternum. He puts a hand over Byleth’s, who spreads their fingers to let Claude’s fall between them. Claude strokes the side of their hand with his thumb.

“Thank you,” Byleth says, “for helping me. For doing everything you did. You didn’t have to. I know you already said you would, but I still want to say thank you.” They wiggle their fingers between Claude’s, gently, a little conversation between their hands. “I was very happy to see you, the other month. Even when I thought it was a dream. I’m sorry it had been so long, before that.”

“Almyra has a lot of open sky, by the way,” Claude says, casually, still running his thumb along their skin. “Not a lot of tall trees. There's plains, and salt deserts, and mountains, and huge lakes, and the capital is near the sea. Kinda like Derdriu in a way, except not really. I’d love to show you.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Byleth says. “I should come visit sometime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading, and to everyone who has left comments and kudos! I really do appreciate every bit of it. I honestly can't believe I've actually managed to write a whole 30k story and FINISH it. Endless thanks goes to Davide and Tama for all their help with this last chapter, I wouldn't have finished it without them, and again to Vector, Mae, Harry and Selki for encouragement along the way. I had so much fun writing this, so hopefully this won't be the last you see of me. <3
> 
> As a bit of backstory, this all stemmed from playing through Crimson Flower, having played Verdant Wind first, and thinking (spoiler ahead) Byleth’s ending in Crimson Flower seemed much more what they deserve - freedom from the experiment Rhea forced on them as a baby. And then I got to wondering... in Verdant Wind, Rhea seems so sure that Sothis’ powers will manifest sooner or later. And maybe that wasn’t a good thing. It’s been fun exploring this with you all!
> 
> EDIT: There is now a piece of fan art???? Thank you so much to smallestbrown for [ this piece,](%E2%80%9C) it’s beautiful!
> 
> DOUBLE EDIT: I now have a Twitter, it’s @hausofthestars, so if you want to keep up on my comings and goings there feel free!
> 
> TRIPLE EDIT: My husband commissioned an absolutely amazing illustration of one of the scenes in Chapter 1, I am over the moon thrilled with it, please regard it [here](https://twitter.com/weaponstriangle/status/1209805215316226048?s=21)!!!


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